The grip of this fiction on the American collective mind reflects a conjuncture of causes: the West’s guilt about the Holocaust; the proto-Zionist theology of American evangelical sects; U.S. imperial interests in Middle East oil reserves; and the West’s long-distrust of and contempt for Arabs and Muslims.

Propaganda produced by Israel and the American Jewish establishment inverts reality. This is crude stuff, manifestly false to anyone who would look up information published by a multitude of respected media and human rights organizations. But omissions and outright lies are probably a deliberate tactic: deny, deny … confuse, confuse … Like Israel’s building of “facts on the ground” (settlements, roads, etc.), it gains time; the hope is that Israeli power will eventually be so entrenched in the land of “Greater Israel” that nobody will remember Palestinians ever lived there.

The justice of the Palestinian cause is increasingly recognized in the West, particularly at the grassroots level. This is due, above all, to the courage and persistence of the Palestinians themselves. But scholars—Arab, Jewish, and other—who challenge the deceptive narratives also deserve credit. One such scholar is Gilbert Achcar, a Lebanese-born professor at the University of London and author of several books on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy.

A smear campaign

The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (Henry Holt and Company, 2010), Achcar’s most recent book, is an ambitious attempt to present an accurate history of Arab attitudes toward Nazism, Jews, and the Holocaust. It refutes the story told by pro-Israel zealots, who attribute hostility to Israel in the Arab world not to Israel’s actions, but to Arabs’ hatred of Jews: hatred, they argue, which originated in Islam and flourished with the Arabs’ collaboration with the Nazis during WWII.

The book has been well received by Middle East and Jewish Studies scholars, and Achcar has been invited to give talks on many university campuses. This raised the ire of David Horowitz, founder of the Horowitz Freedom Center, which, according to its mission statement, “combats the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values and disarm this country … The leftist offensive is most obvious on our nation’s campuses, where the Freedom Center protects students from indoctrination and political harassment.”

Last November, an article in the web FrontPage Magazine, edited and published by Horowitz, launched a smear campaign against Achcar. Focusing on a presentation by Achcar under the auspices of Middle East Studies of the University of California at Berkeley, the article appeared on a host of kindred websites, such as that of Campus Watch, an organization founded by Daniel Pipes, a main purveyor with Horowitz of Islamophobic material and whitewashing of Israel.¹

Another attack, directed at Achcar’s lecture in the Jewish Studies Department of the University of California at Davis, came from BlueTruth, a blog devoted to “refuting the accusations and exposing the lies that are being told … about Israel, Jews and pro-Israel organizations …” One such lie, to judge by the article, is that Israel was “built on Arab land.”

As someone whose mother and father were murdered in Auschwitz, and who herself survived the Nazis’ barbarous nationalism thanks to the courage of a group of Catholics, Protestants, Communists, and Jews, I find the idea that defending the “Jewish state” supersedes all other human obligations both immoral and senseless. Nothing, not even the Holocaust, justifies Israel’s treatment of Palestinians or the continuing efforts of pro-Israel zealots to show Arabs and Muslims as less than human. Israel and its unconditional supporters are on a path leading to catastrophe not only for Palestinians, but in the not very long run, for Israel itself.

The Arabs and the Holocaust

In his talk at Berkeley, Achcar described the book’s main purpose as deconstructing the image, dominant in the West and Israel, of Arabs as pro-Nazi. Relying on an extensive array of primary sources and historical studies, Achcar presents an “Arab world” with a great diversity of beliefs and opinions, a multiplicity of evolving ideological currents—just as in the West. The many Arab countries are not peopled by an indistinct mass of millions animated by ancestral hatred of the Jews. “The Arabs,” Achcar writes, do not exist “as a politically and intellectually uniform group.”²

The first part of Achcar’s book covers the period from 1933, when Hitler acceded to power, until Israel’s foundation in 1948. At that time, “liberal Westernizers” and Marxists took a strong stand against both Nazism and anti-Semitism. In the various Arab nationalist movements, sympathy for the Axis varied but was overall low, and opposition to Zionism did not translate into hatred of “the Jews.” It is only among “reactionary and/or fundamentalist pan-Islamists” that significant anti-Semitism and support for Nazism were found.

Several recent studies confirm this. For example, Achcar’s book quotes Israel Gershoni, a professor of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University, who wrote that in the 1930s:

the overwhelming majority of Egyptian voices—in the political arena, in intellectual circles, among the professional, educated, urban middle classes and even in the literate popular cultures—rejected fascism and Nazism both as an ideology and a practice, and as “an enemy of the enemy.”³ [a reference to “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” a view which did create some support for Nazi Germany among Arabs living under the yoke of French and British colonization.]

Those painting Arabs as heirs to Nazism use as “proof” one particular episode: the 1941 Baghdad “pogrom” (the Farhud). In April 1941, Iraqi pro-German nationalists led a coup against Iraq’s pro-British regent. Propaganda by the German legation, reinforced by the presence of the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, had whipped up anti-Jewish feeling in Baghdad. British forces invaded Iraq, put the pro-German government to flight, and secured Baghdad, but their troops remained posted on the outskirts. Rumors circulated that the Jews were helping the much-hated British. There followed two days of killing and plunder; about 180 Jews were murdered. The rioters were stopped when Iraqi troops entered Baghdad and reestablished order, killing many of the mob.

Achcar notes that the vast majority of Muslim Iraqis condemned the violence and many protected their Jewish neighbors at the risk of their own lives. Looters from Baghdad’s slums, driven by need rather than anti-Jewish sentiment, joined in the action. With the regent back in power, the Iraqi government granted compensation to the families of Jewish victims.

Achcar’s account of the Farhud agrees with that of several authors, such as Nissim Rejwan, an Israeli writer of Baghdadi origin.⁴ There is little evidence that the Farhud was indicative of widespread and deeply rooted hatred toward Jews in the whole of “the Arab world.” Note that no anti-Jewish rioting occurred in any other Arab country during WWII, despite the calls to jihad broadcast from Berlin by the Mufti from November 1941 on.

In fact, Arabs played a truly remarkable role in defeating Hitler, a fact so carefully suppressed by the French after the war that I did not learn of it in 15 years of schooling in France. As part of De Gaulle’s Free French Forces, Arab troops from French North Africa contributed massively to the liberation of Europe. They fought alongside the Allies from the landing in Sicily in July 1943 to the invasion of Germany in 1945, with great loss of life. For instance, 233,000 of the 550,000 Free French troops landing on the Mediterranean coast in Nazi-occupied France in November 1944 were North African Muslims.⁵

The second part of Achcar’s book traces the rise of anti-Semitism in the Arab world after the founding of Israel in 1948. Western anti-Semitic themes, such as the “international Jewish conspiracy” of the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, found their way into public discourse. Achcar does not excuse or minimize Arab anti-Semitism. He deplores the “abysmal stupidity” of these “anti-Semitic ravings or mindless denials of the Holocaust.” But do these ravings indicate an Arab wish to exterminate the Jews, a project they supposedly inherited from the Nazis? These claims are absurd, according to Achcar and many others. Nissim Rejwan, for instance, writes:

Neither their religious culture nor their historical record lends credence to the claim that the Muslim Arabs of today are capable of the kind of historical consummation that found expression in Auschwitz and other Nazi extermination camps … Viewed in anything like the correct historical perspective, the idea of “Arab Auschwitz” is an absurdity.⁶

And, of course, there are parallel ravings in Israeli/Jewish political discourse: referring to Arabs by animal names, calling for their expulsion and annihilation, and so on. See Israeli General Rafael Eitan’s infamous statement: “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”⁷

Achcar writes: “There are more anti-Semites among the Arabs today than among any other population group—for obvious historical reasons” [emphasis mine].⁸ These historical reasons, which are indeed obvious, were they not again and again obfuscated by pro-Israel apologists, include: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinian Arabs in 1948-1949 and its systematic destruction of 418 Palestinian villages to prevent the refugees’ return: creating 300,000 more Palestinian refugees in 1967; a brutal and tyrannical occupation accompanied by continued ethnic cleansing ever since; and atrocities against civilian populations in wars in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Lebanon.

Contemporary Arab anti-Semitism is not unmotivated, atavistic hatred. It is rooted in anger at Israel’s very real aggressive and destructive policies. Even Bernard Lewis, a historian favored by defenders of Israel, wrote “for Christian anti-Semites, the Palestine problem is a pretext and an outlet for their hatred; for Muslim anti-Semites, it is the cause.”⁹ Remove the cause—that is, end Israel’s ethnocentrism and expansionism—and Arab anti-Semitism would likely fade away.

Achcar shows how Arab anti-Semitism is “reactive” and changeable—dependent on Israel’s actions, its violence, its propaganda (e.g., calling Arabs “Nazis”), and on the particular historical and political circumstances of the various Arab/Muslim countries. It is not “the fantasy-based hatred of the Jews that was and still is typical of European racists.”¹⁰

I surmise that The Arabs and the Holocaust was written with an Arab audience in mind as well as a Western one. The book has been translated into Arabic and it is, among other things, an attempt to build bridges, a call for each side to listen to the other. He writes:

It is faith in human reason that justifies the hope that what counts as truth on one side of the Green Line or, rather, of the separation wall, will not forever count as error on the other.¹¹

In the conclusion, describing “statist Zionism” as “a Janus, one face turned toward the Holocaust, the other toward the Nakba, one toward persecution endured, the other toward persecution inflicted,” Achcar returns to the need for each side to acknowledge the sufferings of the other:

Only recognition of both of Janus’ faces—of the Holocaust and the Nakba—can bring Israeli, Palestinians, and other Arabs in genuine dialogue.¹²

Achcar’s book displays a formidable knowledge of the currents of thought on both sides of the Arab/Jewish divide as well as a brilliant analytic mind. By placing Arab attitudes toward the Holocaust in historical and psychological contexts, he opens up vistas to Western readers beyond the shallow, warped views of U.S. main media. He understands and has compassion for the historical wounds of the Jews. His integrity and openness shine throughout.

Hasbara

The authors of the FrontPageMag article, Cinnamon Stillwell and Rima Greene, seem not to be concerned about historical context. They mix innuendo, distortion and falsehood, quote out of context and misquote, then add in one or another point of dogma. They do not at any point counter Achcar with contrary evidence. Instead, they speak in generalities, e.g., Achcar’s book “masks its outlandish conclusions with scholarly apparatus while confirming the biases of the left-leaning, anti-Israel Middle East studies establishment.”

The “Hasbara Handbook: Promoting Israel on Campus” (hasbara is Hebrew for “public relations, “ or “propaganda”), published in 2002 by the World Union of Jewish Students, gives advice on how to score points “whilst avoiding genuine discussion”: rather than addressing your opponent’s arguments, make “as many comments that are positive about Israel as possible whilst attacking certain Palestinian positions, and attempting to cultivate a dignified appearance”; repeat points again and again, “If people hear something often enough, they come to believe it.” The same tactics seem to be used in the writing of most FrontPageMag articles.

Nakba vs. Holocaust

Stillwell and Greene write: “Achcar concluded by drawing an asinine correlation between the Holocaust … and the ‘Nakba’ or ‘catastrophe,’ the Arabic term to describe the creation of the state of Israel: ‘The Shoah ended in 1945, but the suffering of the Palestinians is never-ending.’”

In fact, Achcar, in his talk characterized the Nakba as “fortunately not a genocide, but what we could call an act of ethnic cleansing.” He went on to say that real dialogue conducive to peace requires

the mutual recognition of the tragedies of each other without putting them on the same plane … because the magnitude of the Holocaust cannot be compared to that of the Nakba… Nevertheless, this does not diminish the importance of what Palestinians have suffered. Not only the ordeal of the Palestinians is continuing … But they went through … the worst kind of experience just recently in Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.

In his book, Achcar condemns making “no distinction between colonialist usurpation of a territory and the racist extermination of a whole population.”¹³ He quotes Edward Said: “Who would want morally to equate mass extermination with mass dispossession?”¹⁴ But he also states that Palestinian suffering is ongoing, and getting worse.

In fact, it is rarely useful to compare the Holocaust and the ordeal of the Palestinians; it does not help us understand the reality of either. Sixty-four years have elapsed since the Nakba, 64 years during which Palestinians have been subjected to further wars, expulsions, and dispossession. They have been denied political, economic, and human rights. At present, in Gaza, 1.5 million people, half of them children, are imprisoned behind a 25-foot high fence and regularly attacked by Israeli drones and Apache helicopters, killed by fire from tanks and snipers on Gaza’s borders; in the West Bank, Palestinians are evicted from their land to make way for Israeli settlers who harass and kill with impunity; and East Jerusalem is being “judaized,” i.e., emptied of its Palestinian inhabitants.

This is not genocide, but what name is there for it?

Anti-Arab racism in Israel

Stillwell and Greene claim that, unlike anti-Semitism in the Arab world, “’anti-Arab attitudes in Israel’ are neither widespread, [nor] promulgated through state-provided education and other official means.” But all polls of Israeli Jews reveal deep anti-Arab feeling. For instance, the Israel Democracy Institute released a poll in January 2011, which found that nearly half of Israeli Jews would not want to live next door to an Arab.¹⁵ Racism is strongest among the young: the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that civics teachers around the country were complaining of rampant, virulent anti-Arab racism amongst their Jewish students.¹⁶

Nuri Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli professor of education and author of a book on Israeli school books,¹⁷ thinks “state-provided education” is a main culprit in promoting racism. Interviewed in the Guardian, she said Israeli school books describe Arabs “as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don’t pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don’t want to develop… The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists.”

She added: “One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behavior of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. … I think the major reason for that is education.”

“Other official means” of promulgating racism include laws that are the very foundation of the Israeli state: the 1950 Law of Return and 1952 Citizenship Law, which allow every Jew in the world to immigrate to Israel and become an Israeli citizen. These same laws forbid the return of Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes from 1947 to 1952. This inequity may have made sense to those in the West who lived through the years after WWII, when the horrors of the Holocaust and general acceptance of colonialism blinded almost everyone to the injustice perpetrated against Palestinian Arabs. But it is much past time to look at the situation through Palestinian eyes.

More recent laws show racism becoming increasingly institutionalized in Israel. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, reports that “the current government coalition has proposed a flood of new racist and discriminatory bills.” One such bill legalizes “admission committees” operating in nearly 700 small towns, allowing them to reject applicants deemed “unsuitable to the social life of the community … or the social and cultural fabric of the town”—for “unsuitable applicants,” read principally “Arabs.”¹⁸

Holocaust denial, Nakba denial

Israel’s recent Nakba Law effectively forbids the public commemoration of the Nakba. Israel lodged a protest when UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon used the word in a telephone conversation with Mahmoud Abbas on May 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Nakba. Tzipi Livni, then Israel’s foreign minister, declared: “The Palestinians can celebrate an Independence Day if, on that day, they eliminate the word Nakba from their vocabulary.”

Speaking with her usual icy self-assurance, Livni was essentially telling the Arab minority to shut up about a fact no historian denies, not even Zionist historian Benny Morris, who said: “I don’t think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”¹⁹ Because she speaks as a government minister of a state with a very powerful military and several hundred nuclear weapons, her pronouncements are alarming.

Livni makes luminously clear that Israel is not a democracy for all its citizens. For the Jews, yes, although the rights of dissenters are increasingly restricted. In effect, “a Jewish and democratic state” is an oxymoron, no matter how much ink has been spent to deny it: a state so defined must privilege the Jews over other citizens. And being Jewish is unlike being, for example, French. One can become French by participating in the country’s communal life for five years, but there is no way to become Jewish and qualify for the Law of Return except by converting to Judaism, or by being “a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew, and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew.”

Israel: innocent, victimized, maligned …

Gail Rubin J.D. author of the BlueTruth article, waxes indignant at Achcar for describing Israel as a “’settler colonial project’ built on ‘Arab land,’” and “accusing Zionists of ‘ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.’”

That Israel was built on Arab land, whether bought or confiscated, is undeniable. As for “ethnic cleansing,” Benny Morris, who argued in his early books that the Palestinians had fled because of the war, now concedes the role of deliberate Zionist policy: “I have concluded that pre-1948 thinking had a greater effect on what happened in 1948 than I had allowed for…”²⁰

In any case, no one denies that Israel prevented the return of refugees, a violation of international law. It was Israeli policy to shoot as “infiltrators” Palestinians trying to return to their villages in the night. Hundreds of villages were destroyed to foreclose their former inhabitants’ return.

Arguments about the colonial nature of the Israeli state usually take the form of semantic nitpicking. Sociologist Maxime Rodinson, a French Jew who first broke the taboo against calling Israel a “colonial-settler state,” concludes his remarkable 1967 essay:

… the creation of the State of Israel on Palestinian soil is the culmination of a process that fits perfectly into the European-American movement of expansion in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries whose aim was to settle new inhabitants among other people or to dominate them economically and politically. This is, moreover, an obvious diagnosis, and if I have taken so many words to state it, it is only because of the desperate efforts that have been made to conceal it.²¹

Stillwell and Greene recommend a review of Achcar’s book by “atypical professors” Matthias Küntzel and Colin Meade. The lengthy review²² takes up the themes of Küntzel’s book, Jihad and Jew-hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the roots of 9/11, such as: Islamist movements—al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran’s regime—originated in the lethal link between Islamism and Nazism; the Arabs have inherited “eliminatory anti-Semitism” from the Nazis; jihadism and jihadist anti-Semitism are the greatest threats to the world today. According to Achcar, his book is “a fantasy-based narrative pasted together out of secondary sources and third-hand reports.”²³

In Küntzler’s view, responsibility for the Palestine-Israel conflict lies entirely with the Palestinians and Arabs:

… it is not the escalation of the Middle East conflict that has given rise to anti-Semitism; it is rather anti-Semitism that has given rise to the escalation of the Middle East conflict – again and again…. In fact, what we are seeing is the revival of Nazi ideology in a new garb.²⁴

This is yet another version of the myth that Israel acts only in response to Arab aggression. In fact, following the conquest of land and expulsion of its native Arab inhabitants, Israel again and again inflicted great harm on Arabs and Muslims—primarily the Palestinians, but also those living in the border states—through actions that cannot be attributed to Israel’s need to survive. Consider the annexation of Jerusalem, a city sacred to Islam; the occupation of the Palestinian territories and of the Golan Heights; and wars such as that against Lebanon in 2006, supposedly a response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that resulted in 1,200 Lebanese deaths, almost all of them civilians.

One example provides strong evidence that Arabs have not inherited the Nazis’ exterminatory will. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, re-endorsed unanimously by the Arab League in 2007,²⁵ calls upon Israel to withdraw from all the territories occupied since 1967, and for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Arab countries would then commit to establishing normal relations with Israel and provide security for all the states of the region. Israel is entreated to accept the initiative to “[enable] the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighborliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity.” The initiative calls for “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem,” but expresses support for any negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestinians.

It is difficult to find exterminatory anti-Semitism in all this. Unsurprisingly, Israeli politicians have ignored the initiative.

All signs point to the fact that Israel has never wanted an equitable peace settlement. Israeli governments since Israel’s beginnings, including Labor governments, have all acted to further the goal of a Greater Israel empty of Palestinians.

The how and why of pro-Israel watchdogs on campuses

Pro-Israel propaganda outlets like Frontpage Magazine carry little weight with scholars of the Middle East, but they are significant actors in sustaining the upside-down view of the Israel-Palestine conflict in America. They use intimidation to inhibit free speech on campuses, and poison the well of public discourse.

They advise students to take notes and report on professors, which especially intimidates junior, untenured faculty. They post on their websites telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of departments and faculties which get harassed by angry phone calls and swamped by hate mail.

Pipes and Horowitz encourage confrontation and creating disturbances, followed by complaints that their freedom of speech was curtailed. So here is Gail Rubin’s account of the Q&A part of Achcar’s talk at UC, Davis:

… challenging questions were not welcomed during the Q & A. I was abruptly censored while attempting to establish facts to challenge Mr. Achcar’s skewed conclusion that the Grand Mufti’s anti-Semitism had only a minimal impact on both Jews and Arabs. Professors Miller and Biale angrily told me the questions were insulting and to either stop or leave the room.

In fact, according to Jewish Studies Director, Professor Diane Wolf, Rubin was called on to ask her question, read a prepared script with no relation to Achcar’s talk, and then asked him whether he wasn’t blaming the Holocaust on the Jews. As he started to express that he was shocked and offended, she tried to re-read her statement. At this point, Professor David Biale and others told her to be quiet and Professor Susan Miller explained that in an academic environment, we wait for the speaker’s response to a question. She should leave if she could not abide by those rules. So the questioner was stopped only when she interrupted Achcar to repeat her statement.

In an interview after Achcar’s program, Professor Emily Gottreich, Vice Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Berkeley, commented that if these campus pro-Israel activists were truly interested in engaging in academic dialogue, they would express their disagreements directly to the scholar in a public forum or to departmental chairs or program directors; instead, they appeal directly to donors, who tend to be neither Middle East experts nor particularly well-versed in the rules of academic discourse, to withdraw funding; or they approach university presidents or chancellors with accusations of anti-Semitism and “biased” scholarship.

Campus Watch and Horowitz’ Freedom Center are only two pieces in a large network of pro-Israel pressure groups operating on campuses. The Israel on Campus Coalition includes no less than 33 independent organizations, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Anti-Defamation League (but not Horowitz’ or Pipes’ organizations, whose work may not quite fit the coalition’s image). The coalition works “to engage leaders at colleges and universities around issues affecting Israel, and to create positive campus change for Israel.”

Why this vast deployment of resources on campuses? The answer is straightforward. A recent document by the David Project, dedicated to ensuring that “effective support for Israel thrives on campuses and in our communities,” states: “AIPAC has had a successful track record in building campus ties to future members of Congress and campus leaders.”²⁶ To-morrow’s leaders are on campuses today, so the thinking goes, and they must be reached by Israeli propaganda as early as possible.

Changing Americans’ view of who Palestinians are

Philip Weiss, founder and co-editor of Mondoweiss.net, a website of news about Israel/Palestine, recounts a Skype-mediated “meeting” with youth in Gaza: “Most of the questions were from young men. They were smart but slightly abstract questions … Then Rawan Yaghi sat at the microphone and asked, What can be done to change Americans’ view of who Palestinians are?”

Weiss writes of being overcome with emotion by this “poised young woman wearing wire-rimmed glasses, 18 years old … There was such delicacy to her manner and her question … I struggled against upwelling emotions to answer her question. ‘`This is the biggest question of all, and I don’t know the answer.’”

For all of us living outside the prison of Gaza, this young woman’s question should come as a call to remember the immense harm created by prejudice, ignorance, and demonization. Voices like Gilbert Achcar’s must be heard on campuses and in larger public arenas.

1. Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, Center for American Progress, August 2011.
2. Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust, p. 33.
3. Israel Gershoni, “Beyond Anti-Semitism: Egyptian Responses to German Nazism and Italian Fascism in the 1930s” (EUI Working Paper no. RSC 20001/32, San Domenico, 2001, p.6.
4. Nissim Rejwan, The Jews of Iraq: 3000 years of history and culture. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985.
5. Benjamin Stora, L’armée d’Afrique: Les oubliés de la Libération, ‪Volume 692 of Textes et documents pour la classe TDC. ‪C.N.D.P., 1995.
6. Nissim Rejwan, Arabs aims and Israeli attitudes. The Leonard Davis Institute, Davis Occasional Papers, No 77, 2000.
7. “Israel Washes Away the Sins of Former Army Chief of Staff,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2005.
8. Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust, p. 274.
9. Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. Reissued with new afterword. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. p. 259.
10. Achcar, p. 275.
11. Achcar, p. 273.
12. Achcar, p. 291.
13. Achcar, p. 130.
14. Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust, p. 26.
15. “Israeli intolerance shows up on Internet, in Knesset, on the street,” Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2011.
16. Tomer Velmer, “Student’s answer on civics test: Death to Arabs,” YNet Magazine, January 19, 2011.
17. Nurit Elhanan-Peled, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education. Library of Modern Middle East Studies, 2012.
18. “The Inequality Report,” Adalah, March 2011. See also “New Discriminatory Laws and Bills in Israel,” June 2011. Both can be downloaded from Adalah.
19. “Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris,” with 
Ari Shavit, Logos 3.1, Winter 2004.
20. Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 5.
21. Maxime Rodinson, Israel: A Colonial-Settler State?, New York: Monad Press, 1973.
22. “In the Straightjacket of Anti-Zionism,” on the website of Engage, “a resource that aims to help people counter the boycott Israel campaign.” Küntzel’s book Jihad and Jew-hatred, translated by Colin Mead, was published by Telos Press Publishing (2008).
23. Achcar, p. 169-170.
24. From a talk given at Yale University, “Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic Antisemitism in the Middle East.”
25. Arab Peace Initiative.
26. “A Burning Campus? Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges,” 2012.

It is a seeming admission that the entirety of Israel is situated on historical Palestine, something few Jews care to admit. It is similar to how few Canadians or Americans care to admit that their states are erected on the territory of Indigenous nations. However, Herskovits also writes of Israel’s “44-year long occupation of the Palestinian Territories.” Is it an occupation only of the Palestinian Territories or is it also an occupation of the entirety of historical Palestine? Some may quibble that it is now formally an international state by virtue of United Nations Partition Plan of 1948 and UN General Assembly Resolution 273 (although not ratified by the UN Security Council).² Did the UN have legal right to partition Palestine in the first place? Did the UN act according to moral principles in partitioning Palestine? If not, how can it be at all legitimate? Ratification is secondary to deliberate theft of a land belonging to another. There was no Israel at any time in Palestine.

Herskovits writes that “…this fiction on the American collective mind reflects a conjuncture of causes: the West’s guilt about the Holocaust; the proto-Zionist theology of American evangelical sects; U.S. imperial interests in Middle East oil reserves; and the West’s long-distrust of and contempt for Arabs and Muslims.”

If guilt is called for, should the West’s guilt be confined to one Holocaust? Should the West not feel guilt over the American Holocaust,³ as professor David Stannard calls the genocide wreaked by Europeans on the Original Peoples in the western hemisphere? There are also the genocides in Australia and elsewhere that were perpetrated by Europeans.

Herskovits takes aim at hasbara: “Propaganda produced by Israel and the American Jewish establishment inverts reality.”

She credits “scholars—Arab, Jewish, and other—who challenge the deceptive narratives” for bringing the justice of the Palestinian cause greater exposure, with a focus on Gilbert Achcar and his book, The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives.

Herskovits often writes disparagingly of “pro-Israel zealots, who attribute hostility to Israel in the Arab world not to Israel’s actions, but to Arabs’ hatred of Jews: hatred, they argue, which originated in Islam and flourished with the Arabs’ collaboration with the Nazis during WWII.”

Herskovits is a survivor of human barbarity. The experience guides her:

As someone whose mother and father were murdered in Auschwitz, and who herself survived the Nazis’ barbarous nationalism thanks to the courage of a group of Catholics, Protestants, Communists, and Jews, I find the idea that defending the “Jewish state” supersedes all other human obligations both immoral and senseless. Nothing, not even the Holocaust, justifies Israel’s treatment of Palestinians or the continuing efforts of pro-Israel zealots to show Arabs and Muslims as less than human. Israel and its unconditional supporters are on a path leading to catastrophe not only for Palestinians, but in the not very long run, for Israel itself.

Racism

Referring to Achcar’s The Arabs and the Holocaust, Herskovits argues against the defamation of an entire group of people: “It is only among ‘reactionary and/or fundamentalist pan-Islamists’ that significant anti-Semitism and support for Nazism were found.” What Herskovits does not mention is that Zionists were in league with Nazis.⁴ It does not make right any racism expressed by an out-group, but it is important to note those casting stones are living in glass houses.

From Achcar: “There are more anti-Semites among the Arabs today than among any other population group—for obvious historical reasons.” Activist scholar Noam Chomsky wrote, “Contempt for the Arab population is deeply rooted in Zionist thought.” Arabs are Semites.⁵

Herskovits says “end Israel’s ethnocentrism and expansionism—and Arab anti-Semitism would likely fade away.” First, Herskovits is grounded on human rights; the “ethnocentrism and expansionism” (I would phrase it “racism and colonialism”) must end. However, “anti-Semitism” is an incorrect term, unless it refers to the minority Hebrew-speaking Mizrahi Jews; the more accurate term would be “anti-Jew” if one is referring to prejudice against Jews. However, animus borne of crimes committed against oneself, one’s kin, one’s people/faith is not racism. If a group of marauders stole my money, beat me to a pulp, and burned down my abode, would it not be preposterous afterwards to call me an anti-marauder? Why should the already stigmatized victim be further stigmatized as being racist?

The ADL defines racism thus:

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another.

This definition would apply to few Arabs; but it definitely applies to most Zionist Jews.⁶

What Arabs — especially, but not confined to, Palestinians — feel is anti-the evil done by Jews; it is not anti-Jew. There is a massive difference. That Jews despise Germans for what the Nazis did to them, does that make them anti-Teutons? Or does it make them anti-the evil done by Nazis? If Jews share the feelings expressed by the holocaust denier, according to Noam Chomsky,⁷ Elie Wiesel

There is a time to love and a time to hate; whoever does not hate when he should does not deserve to love when he should, does not deserve to love when he is able. Perhaps, had we learned to hate more during the years of ordeal, fate itself would have taken fright. The Germans did their best to teach us but we were poor pupils in the discipline of hate. Yet today, even having been deserted by my hate during that fleeting visit to Germany, I cry out with all my heart against silence. Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate–healthy, virile hate–for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead.⁸

then, despite the illogic of his writing⁹ these Jews are guilty of racism because — as should be quite apparent — the sins of the ancestors should not be visited upon the descendants.

Trivializing War Crimes: Whose Suffering Was Greater?

In the documentary, Defamation, Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir depicts how Zionists and the state of Israel use “anti-Semitism” and the Holocaust as themes in sustaining Israel as the Jewish state. In one scene, American Israel Public Affairs Committee head Abe Foxman chides his Ukrainian government hosts.

Shamir narrates: “Foxman is concerned about the Ukrainian government’s comparison of the famine in the Ukraine before World War II with the holocaust.”

Foxman to president Viktor Yuschenko’s special advisor: “One thing that you need to be sensitive about is not to link it [inaudible]… Be careful that it not be played as your genocide, our genocide because that will be counter-productive on all sides.”

The argument smacks of supremacism: that no one may compare their genocide with the genocidet of Jews. Should such a depiction be unassailable especially knowing that the WWII holocaust is not exclusive to Jews and that Jews were not the most numerous victims?¹⁰ Is not the loss of all human life – regardless of ethnicity, religious persuasion, gender, sexuality, etc. – equally deplorable and lamentable?

Sadly, it appears as if Herskovits is making an argument for the supremacy of the victimhood of Jews during the WWII holocaust and denying a role as genocidaires by “pro-Israel ideologues” in her article. Echoing Foxman, Herskovits, by using Achcar as a foil, depicts the Nakba as “fortunately not a genocide, but what we could call an act of ethnic cleansing.”

She further quoted Achcar as saying peace requires

the mutual recognition of the tragedies of each other without putting them on the same plane … because the magnitude of the Holocaust cannot be compared to that of the Nakba… Nevertheless, this does not diminish the importance of what Palestinians have suffered.

Dealing with this excerpt from Foxman-channeling Achcar leaves one feeling perplexed. Let’s examine the assumptions. Do tragedies occupy space on abstract planes? Are genocides, massacres, atrocities to be numerically ordered into some scale of – for want of better language – least evil to evilest? Even if these assumptions hold, Achcar undermines his preceding words by implying that magnitude does not add to or take away from one’s suffering. What does Achcar want to say? Putting the pieces together, it sounds like Achcar is saying: We Arabs are suffering at the hands of Jews, but you Jews suffered more than us.

Herskovits seems torn because next she proffers, “In fact, it is rarely useful to compare the Holocaust and the ordeal of the Palestinians; it does not help us understand the reality of either.”

I would agree with this. Yet, then she carries on with a comparison: “This is not genocide, but what name is there for it?” Herskovits does not immediately answer her question, although she does bring up “ethnic cleansing” later in the essay. It is a comparison that relegates the tragedy experienced by the Other to another “plane” — implicitly below that of genocide. The WWII holocaust is genocide, probably the genocide, in Herskovits’s mind. In Herskovits’ mind, the Nakba does not rise to the “plane” of a genocide.

Is “ethnic cleansing” not genocide?

Three researchers in Jerusalem — Rony Blum, Shira Sagi, and Elihu D. Richter – and Gregory H. Stanton, a research professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at George Mason University, as well as the founder and president of Genocide Watch tackled the terminology of “ethnic cleansing.”

The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is used as a euphemism for genocide despite it having no legal status. … Bystanders’ use of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ signals the lack of will to stop genocide, resulting in huge increases in deaths, and undermines international legal obligations of acknowledging genocide. The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ corrupts observation, interpretation, ethical judgment and decision-making, thereby undermining the aim of public health. Public health should lead the way in expunging the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ from official use. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ bleaches the atrocities of genocide, leading to inaction in preventing current and future genocides.¹¹

Historian Ilan Pappe, in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, courageously acknowledged the expulsion of almost 800,000 people, the destruction of 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods, and the Zionist atrocities against Palestinians.¹² A question arose, however, if Pappe fudged on the definitional question of genocide.

Pappe wrote, “Ethnic cleansing is not genocide, but it does carry with it atrocious acts of mass killing and butchery.”¹³ Pappe considers 1948 is a “clear cut case, according to informed and scholarly definitions, of ethnic cleansing.”

Writer and activist Gary Zatzman demurs,

Ilan Pappe is one of those who fudges this question. He says what the Zionists do today in Gaza is genocide, but what they did in Mandate Palestine since 1947 and in the West Bank since 1967 was ethnic cleansing. DISINFORMATION ALERT! …

It is ALL genocide. The intention of the Haganah was to genocide the Palestinians. It’s very convenient to say, à la Golda Meir, that the Zionists didn’t think of the Palestinians as a people or nationality, just an inconvenient obstacle. The FACT is they prepared and executed genocide. It doesn’t matter, either, that the Zionists didn’t get all the Palestinians in one fell swoop, but have dragged it out over the last 58 years. It is still genocide. To suggest the survivors of the Judeocide were incapable of such a thing, which seems to be the only substance at the heart of the liberal Zionists’ argument, is utter nonsense. Were these survivors not psychically damaged by what they experienced before they were “liberated”? Such people were the ideal human material to set upon the Palestinians like wild beasts.¹⁴

Article 2 (a,b,c, & d) of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide seems to apply well to the case of 1948 and also today:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin would assuredly recognize 1948 and subsequent actions by Jews as genocide, which he described:

[A] coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.¹⁵

Lemkin saw genocide as two-phased:

[O]ne, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization by the oppressor’s own nationals. Lemkin sees “genocide” as a crime against humanity involving myriad actions intended to “destroy or cripple permanently a human group.¹⁶

Herskovits ponders: “One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behavior of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. … I think the major reason for that is education.”

Herskovits is a holocaust survivor trying to be open-minded and fair. It doesn’t, or shouldn’t, work because it serves as a diversion with the very genuine and ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people in their homeland at the hands of Zionist Israeli Jews. Instead, it comes across as an attempt to prioritize the suffering of Jews as opposed to the suffering of all others.

Herskovits shows antipathy for violence and sympathy for the victims of violence. She seeks a solution. She posits education. Surely education is important.

However, education must acknowledge the fact that, despite differences in skin color, beliefs, cultural practices, etc. we are all human beings, endowed with equal human rights. History is in the past, and attempting to gain prominence from the elevation of one’s own suffering and the diminishment of the Other’s suffering indicates a moral backwardness. Attempts to reify past events in a group’s history and raise them to a plane above other groups of humanity reveals miseducation. The lessons of history have been unlearned or abused. For what good reason should humans who show mutual respect and equally share the land and resources fight each other? There is no reason that the wrongs committed by our ancestors be repeated by the present generation. Education should teach that violence is anathema and should never be used to solve disputes, for though military victory might evince physical or technological might, it also evinces moral weakness. Humanity must en masse dismantle the infrastructure, language, and media of war and violence everywhere.

1. Annette Herskovits, “Nazism, Zionism, and the Arab World,” Dissident Voice, 21 May 2012.
2. Resolution 273 is contingent upon Israel implementing UNGA Resolution 181 that defines the borders of Israel and Palestine and UNGA Resolution 194 that recognizes the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
3. See David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (London: Oxford University Press, 1992).
4. See Jews Against Zionism and Anti-Semitism, Melbourne, Australia, Nazi-Zionist Collaboration, (Britain, BAZO-Palestine Solidarity and AZAN in co-operation with JAZA: 1981); Lenni Brenner, “The Zionist Operation Was a Success, the Jewish Patients Died,” Dissident Voice, 31 October 2009.
5. Noam Chomsky, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and The Palestinians (South End Press Classics, 1983,1999). Chomsky, also wrote, “Anti-Arab racism is, however, so widespread as to be unnoticeable; it is perhaps the only remaining form of racism to be regarded as legitimate.”
6. See Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri, “Defining Israeli Zionist Racism, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, & 11, and 12. Dissident Voice, December 2007-January 2008.
7. Quoted in Mickey Z., “Elie Wiesel: Madman or Commissar?” Press Action, 6 June 2004. as saying: “… people like Elie Wiesel were carrying out their usual function of serving Israeli state interests, even to the extent of denying a holocaust, which he regularly does.”
8. Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time.
9. What conclusion should one draw from “The Germans did their best to teach us but we were poor pupils in the discipline of hate.” and “Every Jew… should set apart a zone of hate–healthy, virile hate–for … what persists in the German.” It sounds to this writer as if Wiesel said Jews did not learn to hate but that they hate Germans (not Nazis. Imagine the outrage if one wrote Jews instead of Zionists?)
10. The numbers vary among sources. See, for example, “World War II Casualties,” College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, San Francisco State University; “World War 2 Casualty Statistics,” Second World War History; and “Casualties Numbers by Country,” WWII Archives.
11. Rony Blum, Gregory H. Stanton, Shira Sagi and Elihu D. Richter, “‘Ethnic cleansing’ bleaches the atrocities of genocide,” The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access, 18 May 2007: 1-6. See also a critique of Blum et al. by Kim Petersen, “Bleaching the Atrocities of Genocide: Linguistic Honesty is Better with a Clear Conscience,” Dissident Voice, 7 June 2007.
12. Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (Oneworld Publications, 2006).
13. Pappe, 197.
14. Quoted in Kim Petersen, “Nakba: The Israeli Holocaust Denial,” Dissident Voice, 18 March 2007.
15. Raphael Lemkin, “Genocide.” In Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation — Analysis of Government — Proposals for Redress (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), 79-95. Available at prevent genocide international.
16. Raphael Lemkin, “Genocide as a Crime under International Law,” American Journal of International Law (1947), 41(1):145-151. Available at prevent genocide international.

Without questioning the intellectual validity and the theoretical substance of the postcolonial spectrum of thought, it is clear that some contemporary leading trends within this realm of studies emphasize the role of ‘White male’ and the ‘phallus’ as being at the core of contemporary Western society’s malaise. So the next question is almost inevitable: Where does it leave the ‘White male’? Or more anecdotally, am I, a person who happens to be wrapped in pale skin and is also attached to a white phallic organ, do I bear responsibility for centuries of European genocides? Would my responsibility lessen once I decide to chop my male organ off? Am I, or any other White male, left with any authentic ethical role? Or are we biologically doomed to be the epitome of every wrongdoing of the Western society for generations? The astute postcolonial theorist may suggest that ‘Masculinity’, ‘Whiteness’ and the ‘Phallus’ are mere symbolic representations rather than ‘things in themselves’.

Some postcolonial and feminist theoreticians would argue that imperialism, like patriarchy is, after all, a ‘phallo-centric’, ‘supremacist’, ‘White’ ideology that subjugates and dominates its subjects. This is an interesting and even intriguing statement, yet I am not so sure that it is valid or at all relevant to our understanding of Zionism and the crimes committed by the Jewish state. Zionism and Israel are clearly supremacist ideologies, yet is AIPAC’s push for a war against Iran ‘phallo-centric’? Is the Zionist appetite for Palestinian land ‘patriarchal’, or inspired by any form of ‘phallic’ enthusiasm or even ‘Whiteness’? Is the ‘War against Terror’ that left about one and a half million fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, ‘phallicly’ orientated or is it the White male again?

Let’s face it, Zionism, Israeli politics and Jewish Lobbying are not particularly ‘phallo-centric’ or ‘patriarchal’. They also have little to do with ‘Whiteness’. Zionism, and Israel are actually primarily ‘Judeo-centric’ to the bone. They are racially driven and fuelled by a particular supremacist culture that is inspired by some aspects of Talmudic Goy hating and some sporadic (and false) Old Testament (false) interpretations. But this is exactly the verdict the postcolonial scholar attempts to prevent us from reaching. It is especially embarrassing because Israelis and Zionists openly draw their inspiration and expansionist enthusiasm from Jewish culture and texts, which they interpret in a very particular self-serving manner.

In spite of the fact that this discourse, in its current form, is pretty much, irrelevant to our understanding of Zionism and Israel, this postcolonial discourse is still, very popular amongst some anti Zionists and in particular, Jewish anti Zionists. The reason is pretty simple; it is effective in diverting attention from the real issues; it disguises the magnitude of Jewish power, Jewish politics, the inherent ‘Jewish’ nature of the ‘Jewish State’ and Jewish intellectual hegemony within the west and the Left in particular. Within the realm of the postcolonial discourse we are not even allowed to mention the ‘J word’, let alone criticise Jewish lobbying or Jewish power structures.

In fact, the postcolonial discourse, allows its acolytes to talk endlessly and passionately about Israel and Zionism without saying anything meaningful. It allows the Left to refer to Zionism as ‘settler colonialism’ in spite of the embarrassing fact that no one actually knows where or what exactly is the Jewish ‘mother state’ is.¹ Postcolonial scholars also encourage us to refer to Israel as an Apartheid state in spite of the fact that Apartheid is a racially driven system of exploitation of the indigenous. The Postcolonial enthusiast would obviously turn a blind eye to the fact that Israel is not interested in exploitation of the Palestinians. It prefers to see them gone. Hence, since it aims to get rid of the indigenous, Israel should be realised as an avid follower of the Lebensraum (Living-space) philosophy. From that perspective at least, Israel should be equated with Nazi Germany rather than with South Africa.

The postcolonial discourse, in its current form, allows its anti Zionist enthusiasts to spin endlessly. They can refer to Israel and Zionism without actually disturbing, hurting or even touching Israelis, Zionists and Jewish political structures. The postcolonial theorist is basically engaged in an attack on an imaginary phantasmic construction that has zero relevance to Zionist ideology or Israeli politics whatsoever. It is basically an advanced form of an intellectual onanism.

Like Rabbinical Judaism and Stalinism, the postcolonial discourse is extremely intolerant towards dissent and criticism. It surrounds itself with a defense wall, operates as an intellectual ghetto. In fact, it also invented political correctness just to police and curtail, by means of self-censorship, any freedom of expression.

Arab and Palestinian Postcolonial Scholarship

One of the most influential postcolonial thinkers was Palestinian- American literary theorist Edward Said. Said’s polemic, Orientalism (1979) was a deeply profound attempt to grasp the West’s vision of the Orient, the colony and Islam. The term Orientalism, as coined by Said, covers three interrelated meanings. First, it names the academic study of the Orient. Second, it is a form of deliberation that constitutes the Arab as the ‘other’. Third, it is the structures that maintain Western domination over the Orient.

Being an outstandingly creative intellect, Said engaged in a vast examination of a multitude of Orientalist discourse. His writings refer to political and historical texts as well as literature and media. Said obviously realised the immense importance of cultural criticism and cultural studies.

Confusingly, some of Edward Said’s Palestinian and Arab successors seem to oppose the very field of study Said championed. For example, as much as Said was immersed in deep cultural examination and discourse analysis, Palestinian activist and academic Ali Abunimah recently claimed the following. “We should be very clear in condemning explanations which try to blame a culture or a religion for a political situation.“ Abunimah basically believes that culture doesn’t explain ‘anything at all’. It seems to me that Abunimah, who often integrates the term ‘Orientalism’ into his political statements and tweets, is apparently unfamiliar with the intellectual core of Edward Said’s thought and methodology.

Ali Abunimah is not happy at all with my reading of the conflict. This is understandable and totally legitimate, and furthermore, he is not alone. Other exiled Palestinians seem also to be very concerned. Their outrage at my argument that Israel is not a European-style colonial state implies that they fear the end to a discourse in which they have invested so much. Some of those Palestinians were very happy to add their names to the list of book burners who demanded my disavowal. This was indeed a very sad turn – futile, yet, at the same time both revealing and predictable. Though those Arab and Palestinian scholars criticized my work for being ‘racist’ without providing a single racist comment by me, it was disappointing to discover that, it was in fact their writing that was actually saturated with biological determinist comments and peppered with blunt racism.

Recently we came across a video of cultural BDS leader Omar Barghouti exploring some ‘postcolonial’ ideas. He for instance, insisted that “the white race is the most violent in the history of mankind.” This is an outrageous sweeping generalization especially since Barghouti surely knows that Zionism is Judeo-centric and has very little to do with Whiteness. It is not the degree of ‘Whiteness’ that constitutes the racist element within the Israeli legal system, it is rather the ‘degree of Jewishness’ that makes an Arab Jew privileged in comparison to a Palestinian with a very similar skin colour. Omar Barghouti is studying in a ‘Zionist’ Tel Aviv university (while asking the rest of us to boycott the same university). Seemingly, he has internalised the Zionist academic postcolonial jargon and has integrated and implemented some biological determinist and racist ideas into his pro-Palestinian political thinking.

And Omar Barghouti is not alone. Assad Abu Khalil, AKA The Angry Arab, is another postcolonial enthusiast who also engages in a similar racially driven approach. In his blog post “White Man and Paul Newman,” Angry AbuKhalil writes “the White Man is not a racial category–or it is not merely a racial category but also a political and epistemological category.” Not only does Angry Arab agree that the ‘White Man’ is partially a racial category, he even goes as far as linking skin colour with a political stand and even epistemology.²

Of course, I realise that being an Arab academic in a Zionised American or British university is a tough mission. I guess that for some time the postcolonial discourse was the only possible template that allowed a criticism of Israel and Zionism. But the time is ripe to move on. We’d better now call a spade a spade. It is time to call Israel what it is, namely “the Jewish State.” The time has come to ask what the Jewish State is all about and what is the true meaning of the Jewish symbols that decorate Israeli tanks and airplanes? The time has come for us to grasp that the Jewish Lobby is a primary threat to world peace.

But can we do it all while being thought-policed by the rigid boundaries of the postcolonial realm? Can we talk about Jewish identity politics while some prominent Palestinians activists attempt – to block any discussion on Jewish culture & power? My answer is yes we can, and we’d better make every possible effort to liberate our discourse from the Judeo-centric postcolonial grip.

Whiteness, the Jew, and the Queer

In the last few weeks I have wondered why Omar Barghouti attacks the ‘White race’? Is it really necessary? Couldn’t he just refer to the ‘West’, America, Orientalism or the ‘British Empire’? Why does Angry Arab fight the White man? Is it really an elementary political category? Does the introduction of racial categories and biological determinism serve the Palestinian cause or Arab liberation? I decided to jump into the water and immersed myself in some contemporary texts about whiteness and postcolonial theory. I thought that it may help me to understand the emergence of such thoughts.

Following the recommendation of my friend and musical partner Sarah Gillespie, one of the first texts I picked was Richard Dyer’s White. Dyer is a respected film scholar and a leading writer on the topic. It didn’t take more than five pages before I stumbled upon a very interesting passage that opened my eyes. In the next few lines Dyer speaks about his childhood friendship with a Jewish pal and the impact it had on him.

The key figure here was a Jewish boy at school, whom I’ll call Danny Marker. I used to visit him and his family in Golders Green, a Jewish neighbourhood of London. I knew by then that I was a homosexual and I envied Danny and his family-they too were an oppressed minority, whom, like queers, you could not always spot; but, unlike us, they had this wonderful, warm community and culture and the wrongfulness of their oppression was socially recognised. I now believe that there are intellectual and political problems with making and analogy between Jews and queers, between ethnic and sexual discrimination, but I am trying to say how it felt then. I envied Danny’s ethnicity and wanted to be part of it, indeed, felt at home with it.³

In The Wandering Who, I wrote extensively about the clear ideological and theoretical continuum between Zionism and other marginal thoughts. I explored the deep ideological similarity between Queer theory and the Jewish national aspiration. On the one hand we notice a legitimate and reasonable call against injustice – the Zionist and the Queer theorist demand to become ‘people like other people’ a call obviously understood and supported by many. But on the other hand, we also detect another forceful demand – to maintain and preserve uniqueness and differentiation. As one can imagine, the humanist call for equality can easily clash with the forceful self-centric, clannish demand for preservation (especially when celebrated on the expense of others).

However, Richard Dyer explores here another special affinity between the queer and the Jew. As a homosexual, he expresses a clear and innocent envy of his Jewish schoolmate’s social landscape. Dyer notices that in spite of being oppressed, the Jews have managed to form a “warm and wonderful community and culture.” Dyer’s feeling at home within the Jewish family nest may explain why Tel Aviv has become a Gay capital. It explains why some prominent Queer activists feel so strongly and positively about the Jewish State, Zionism, Jewish culture and Jewishness in general. But it also may explain why some Arab and exiled Palestinian secular academics, feel some affinity to the Jewish dominated anti Zionist postcolonial nest. Operating as an intellectual ghetto, it may also retain some Jewish characteristics, it is probably a ‘warm community’ as Dyer describes it. It may even be that some Palestinian postcolonial secular academics would feel more comfortable in Tel Aviv University than in Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

I obviously understand it, and I am far from being judgmental. But am I naïve to expect Palestinian activists and intellectuals to ensure that the, ‘wrongfulness of Palestinian oppression’ be widely and ‘socially recognised’ by the masses, rather than by a few postcolonial Jewish Anti Zionists? It is time for our discourse to leave the ghetto.

I guess that in order to achieve such a goal, we must transcend the decaying postcolonial discourse or else completely revise it. We must drift away from any form of marginal ideology. We must be able to deconstruct Jewish texts and Jewish cultural discourse with the same vigor that Edward Said deconstructed the European canon, whether it was Charles Dickens or Lord Balfour. We actually better locate the issue of Palestine at the forefront of the battle for a better world, humanity and humanism.

We should engage in an inclusive, open intellectual debate that welcomes all oppressed (queers, gays, Arabs, Muslims, people of colour and so on) and oppressors too. At the end of the day, with 50 million Americans living in deep poverty watching 30,000 drones fly over their heads, Gaza is now in Detroit, Newark, and Philadelphia. Our solidarity with Palestine can now become a true force of genuine empathy. We don’t now just put ourselves in the shoes of the Palestinians, we actually wear them. We all strive for the same liberty. We are one.

1. If Israel is the Jewish ‘Settler State’ we better be informed at last where is the Jewish ‘mother state’ for colonialism is defined by a clear material, cultural and spiritual exchange between a mother and a settler states.
2. It would be wrong not to mention professor Joseph Massad of Columbia University. Following his Mentor Edward Said, Massad also writes about the role of colonialism, its structure, its impact and the scars it left behind. Like Barghouti and Abu Khalil, Massad also refers occasionally to skin colour. Yet, unlike Barghouti and Abu Khalil, Massad seems to be far more careful and astute. Rather than falling into the banal biological determinist trap, he seems to critically refer and examine the role of skin colour from structural, social, cultural and political perspectives.
3. White, Richard Dyer, p. 5.

We dance round in a ring and suppose
But the secret sits in the middle and knows.

— Robert Frost

Victors’ celebrations harbor shadows that lurk in the soul as revelers dance in remembrance, burying in laughter the suffering screams of those displaced and destroyed, furiously hiding forgotten faces framed in fear from mocking the glorious dance should they be awakened once more by the reverie. May 14 and 15 are paradoxically days of celebration and catastrophe; victors “dance round in a ring and suppose,” caught in a never ending quest to know if indeed this celebration is for victory or for defeat, while those vanquished understand “the secret that sits in the middle and knows.” Are the secrets Truth that we are afraid to delve into, too ashamed to acknowledge, or fear of a pending Nakba for the victor signaled by a merciful and just God?

As this May day approaches, a Biblical age of three score and four for the state of Israel, only six years short of Biblical death, an appropriate time for reflection about judgment and retribution, about peace and justice lest the sins of the fathers remain the curse of the children. What is the secret that sits in the middle and knows? What is it keeping secret? Who is it, since it is personified and knows? Who are the dancers this May 14? Are they the children of the next generations whose fathers sinned? What do they suppose? What do they suppose the victory remembrance celebrates? Does it celebrate the men, the fathers and husbands and sons that massacred the fathers and husbands and sons at Deir Yassin? Do they meditate on those relatives of the dead who live now in refugee camps in foreign countries who have not been home for 64 years, nor seen the town now transformed into a psychiatric institution, nor visited the graves across the street, tombstones upended and defaced? What minds contemplated the barbarity of Deir Yassin a month and five days before the state of Israel declared its freedom as a democratic country desiring recognition by the nations of the world? What minds could lie to the President of the United States, even as they laid waste the town and its people, appealing to him to immediately recognize Israel because they would bring peace to Palestine by obeying the Charter and Declaration of Human Rights held sacred by the United Nations?

What personified being knows? Is it the omniscient and just God who heard the voices of the dying mothers and children and the lamentations of the men trucked through the streets of Jerusalem, living proof of Israeli might, mocked and ridiculed as inferior beings before they were returned to their town for execution? What is it about secrets that stir such fear in the hearts of the revelers? Certainly they know the faces of the dead do not die to the mind of the reaper; they live just below the twisted thoughts that gave rise to the slaughter, for why kill if remembrance of that fulfilled savagery is not possible? And isn’t that after all what the Almighty meant when he proclaimed the “sins of the father are visited upon the children”?

But what if we turn to the ring; what does it represent? Perhaps it’s the Wall that Israel built to hide the enemy they have been unable to cleanse in the manner of Deir Yassin and the other known and unknown massacres recorded by Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe. Perhaps the Wall does not hide the indigenous people as it was supposed to do; that may be what they suppose as they dance round in a ring. Perhaps it rather makes obvious that lives exist beyond that wall, that freedom to move is curtailed for them, that hours can pass attempting to get permission slips to visit Jerusalem, and hours more can pass to travel the seven miles to their former home. Perhaps this is more than just an “inconvenience” as explained by Michael Oren on 60 Minutes, perhaps it’s an intentional and calculated inhuman interference in personal lives that casts as dirty an image on the occupiers as the affront casts on those dispossessed of rights.

How unfortunate that those who dance must have their backs to something or someone they cannot see; how disturbing that must feel since it is the unknown that raises fear and turns it inward corroding the comfort that comes with openness and friendship. What peace of mind exists when one knows that life has been made miserable for people beyond the Wall; what peace blossoms when fear circles behind the back because the government determines the on-going need for greater and greater military power making a police state of a nation inside and outside the Walls built to contain both the body and the soul. What hope evaporates for a future without the shadows that the Wall casts on both those hemmed in and those cut out and life becomes a constant search for unknowns that threaten life and limb even as the very protection the Wall supposes to create destroys friendships with others and isolates each citizen in the sick minds of those who rule the country.

The sins of the fathers began 64 years ago when they swore allegiance to a group of men who had taken control of Palestine from the British Government laying waste both the Arab people and the Mandate government of Britain regardless of agreements made and pledges of cooperation signed between the Mandate authorities and the Jewish Agency. It began with an oath that necessitated selling the soul.

From the moment an individual takes the oath,** they are committed to a life of secrecy and hence of disloyalty and betrayal to those they are most intimate with in their day to day life. Neither their actions nor their true identity is discernible to those with whom they interact regularly. This is a life that encapsulates the necessity of lies, deceit, coercion, extortion, and obedience to a group that dictates the actions one must pursue; freedom no longer exists, self-direction no longer exists, loyalty to others no longer exists, indeed, friendship with others is compromised or impossible, one becomes the subject of that group, a veritable slave to their desires and wills. The mindset that promotes such control allows for spying, for deception of friends, for ostracism in one’s own community for thinking differently, for imprisonment without due process, for torture, even for extrajudicial executions. It is a total commitment to a cause that supersedes all others determined and dictated by an oligarchy in silence and subject to no legitimate institution and to no one.

The darkness of the Zionists’ deceit was and is camouflaged by the appearance of civil structures existing within the framework of a legal authority, the Mandatory Government’s accepted agency for the Jewish community in Palestine and, today the presence of lobbies, think tanks, controlled media of communication, and legalization of policies that allow for dual citizenship among others. Fear still operates, fear of the non-friendly, enemy states that surround the friendly, democratic state of Israel promoted as existentially threatening to America’s security, fear for representatives in Congress who dare not confront the desires of AIPAC and its affiliates lest they find themselves bereft of political support and consequently bereft of their position, and fear induced by corporate media that fears offending the power base represented by the lobby.

Until Israel’s fall 2006 blitzkrieg of Lebanon, when the world had an opportunity to witness the ruthlessness of Israeli Zionist violence unimpeded by concern for helpless civilians fleeing for their lives or orphans unable to take shelter from missiles or children returning home after fearful flight from invading forces only to find toy-like cluster bombs left intentionally to maim or slaughter, the world’s communities felt a sympathy for the offspring of those victimized by the Nazis. Prior to that destruction wrought by a military of enormous power, the people of the world knew little of what went on in Palestine and knew only that the Jews of Palestine in 1948 and 1967 had to fight against overwhelming odds against Arabs of many nations intent on pushing them into the sea, victims of human violence once again. Then came December 27, 2008, Israel’s Christmas bombing of Gaza, Holiday giving with a vengeance. Once again, the might of Israel’s state of the art military — its air force, navy, army — invaded the defenseless, imprisoned, physically destitute residents of Gaza. Once again, the world witnessed the ruthlessness of Israel’s Zionist intent to subjugate, humiliate, and obliterate the indigenous people of Palestine. Now the world knows the truth: the Zionist Consultancy that ruled the Jewish people in Palestine in 1930s and 1940s, like their counterparts in the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert in December of 2008 and January of 2009, intended to expel the people of Palestine from their land and had the military means to do it against an anemic enemy incapable of defending the people.

There is an unraveling of the lies of omission that have quilted the truth these many years. As each square rots in the sun now shed on it, the plight of the people of Palestine becomes more and more apparent. Benny Morris revealed in June of 2009 that “there were far more acts of massacre than I had previously thought (with the new documents made available) … and many cases of rape … and (between April-May 1948) units of Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.” He continued in response to the interviewer’s questions: “Because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported … are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg.”; “The worst cases (of massacre) were Saliha (70-80 killed, Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70); Ben Gurion “covered up for the officers who did the massacres.”; “Yes … the commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population.”; “From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer… The entire leadership understands that this is the idea.”; and quoting Morris himself, “Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.”

In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappe states: “The Zionist project could only be realized through the creation in Palestine of a purely Jewish state, both as a safe haven for Jews from persecution and a cradle for a new Jewish nationalism. And such a state had to be exclusively Jewish not only in its socio-political structure but also in its ethnic composition.” Pappe’s accounting of the ethnic cleansing is not pleasant reading. It is a detailed presentation of calculated ruthlessness. Considered alongside Walid Khalidi’s All That Remains, it provides the reader with a visual context that forces consideration of the mothers and fathers and children who once lived and worked and played and prayed in the 418 villages destroyed. It is that human element that can give meaning to “Never Again.” (Introduction The Plight of the Palestinians, section “Selling the Soul.”) Such is the sorrowful tale of the sins of the father.

—————–

** The Hagana Oath (Secret files of Sir Richard C. Catling, Deouty Head CID, Mandate Police)

For those entering the military forces of the Jewish Agency, the Hagana, the badge is replaced with the Hagana Oath (XVI A 157).

I hereby declare that of my own free will and in free recognition I enter the Jewish defence organization of the Land of Israel, (Irgun Haganana Haivri Be’Eretz Israel).

I hearby swear to remain loyal all the days of my life to the defense organization, its laws and its tasks as defined in its basic regulations by the High Command.

I hearby swear to remain at the disposal of the defense organization all my life, to accept its discipline unconditionally and without limit, and at its call to enlist for active service at any time and in any place, to obey all its orders and to fulfill all its instructions.

I hearby swear to devote all my strength, and even to sacrifice my life, to defense and battle for my people and my Homeland, for the freedom of Israel and for the redemption of Zion.

Abuminah has been in the forefront of the anti-Zionist movement for years, and over that time has built a considerable reputation. His website, electronicintifada.net, is still an outstanding source for non-zionist (read: uncensored) news about the Occupation. Consequently, his denunciation of Atzmon was guaranteed to be influential and reach a large audience, thereby maximizing the potential damage to Atzmon’s reputation and scholarship.

The effect of the attack, though, has been suitably ironic. Rather than harm Atzmon’s reputation, Abuminah has elevated it beyond anything Atzmon could have done by himself. Outpourings of support have come from prominent activists like Kim Petersen, Alison Weir, Kevin Barrett, Mark Glenn, and Prof. Norton Mezvinsky. If Abuminah wanted to limit the reach of Atzmon’s arguments, he should have kept quiet and just let the hasbarats do what they do best.

What puzzles me is the manner of the attack less than the attack itself. For instance, why did Abuminah denounce Atzmon so maliciously, and did he seriously think he could escape condemnation? I wanted to put these and other questions to this champion of Palestine, but in the absence of co-operation I have had to come up with my own answers.

Vilifying  Gilad Atzmon

1. Smear and Run

I can understand that Abuminah might dissent from Atzmon in whole or in part, but to denigrate him categorically and mount a campaign to disavow him is evidence of personal animus, not scholarly disagreement. For example, after making passing reference to Atzmon’s new book, The Wandering Who, Abuminah gets personal:

With this letter, we call for the disavowal of Atzmon by fellow Palestinian organizers, as well as Palestine solidarity activists, and allies of the Palestinian people, and note the dangers of supporting Atzmon’s political work and writings and providing any platforms for their dissemination. We do so as Palestinian organizers and activists, working across continents, campaigns, and ideological positions.

The implication here is that Gilad Atzmon is not a Palestinian solidarity activist or an ally of the Palestinian people. In fact, Abuminah deems him to be an enemy of Palestine and tries to excommunicate Atzmon from the community of Palestinian activists. How is this constructive?! Whether or not Abuminah wants to admit it, Atzmon and he are on the same side, but such dogmatic hostility suggests strongly that the motive for the attack goes deeper than a squabble over activist orthodoxy.

2. The Attack

The next paragraph outlines Abuminah’s “case” against Atzmon followed by Atzmon’s comments (italics):

1. Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness.”

“It is a complete misrepresentation of my thoughts. Also was Freud obsessed with unconsciousness? Was Einstein obsessed with relativity?”

Abuminah provides no evidence to substantiate either the claim of vicious attacks or obsession. Could one argue that Abuminah is obsessed with Palestine?

2. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal” …

No I refer only to third category Jewish politics; hence, I do not talk about all Jewish politics.

In The Wandering Who, which Abuminah has not read, Atzmon divides “Jews” into three categories:

• Those who follow Judaism;
• Those who regard themselves as human beings that happen to be Jewish; and
• Those who put their “Jewishness” above all other traits.

The idea of political tribalism clearly does not apply to the first two categories, so Abuminah’s charge against Atzmon is without merit.

3 … and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, …

It is a settler project but not colonial for there is no Jewish mother state.

but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self [sic] as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist.

This is complete nonsense!

In fact, the positions Abuminah attributes to Atzmon do not appear anywhere in the pages of The Wandering Who. Moreover, they are obviously ridiculous, given Atzmon’s careful distinction among Jews. Even a cursory read of Atzmon’s book could have prevented Abuminah from conflating “Jew” with “Jewishness”, but that implies that Abuminah was interested in depicting Atzmon fairly, but the end of the paragraph proves otherwise:

We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

3. Jewish sensitivities come first

Abuminah, like a lot of Palestinian activists, subscribes to the cult of Jewish victimhood, thereby allowing zionists to define the boundaries of acceptable discourse. One would expect a Palestinian activist like Abuminah to be less concerned with upsetting Jews than with exposing the role that Judaism and Jewish chauvinism play in the persecution of Palestinians. This is precisely what Atzmon does in The Wandering Who, but instead of embracing Atzmon’s candour and honesty, Abuminah sets himself up as “Judge, Jewry and Executioner” against Atzmon:

We reaffirm that there is no room in this historic and foundational analysis of our struggle for any attacks on our Jewish allies, Jews, or Judaism; nor denying the Holocaust; nor allying in any way shape or form with any conspiracy theories, far-right, orientalist, and racist arguments, associations and entities. Challenging Zionism, including the illegitimate power of institutions that support the oppression of Palestinians, and the illegitimate use of Jewish identities to protect and legitimize oppression, must never become an attack on Jewish identities, nor the demeaning and denial of Jewish histories in all their diversity.

Because Israel claims to be a Jewish state, and admits that it persecutes Palestinians as a matter of national policy, it is expected, even necessary, for all things Jewish to come in for criticism. This is especially true of the Holocaust®, the founding myth of the zionist entity.

For example, the number “six million” in connection with mass violence against Jews predates the Holocaust® by a quarter century. On Oct. 31, 1919, the American Hebrew published “The Crucifixion of Jews Must Stop,” a blithering screed by former New York Governor Martin H Glynn that began: “From across the sea, six million men and women call to us for help, and eight hundred thousand little children cry for bread.” The number “six million” is repeated four times! Further instances of this number appear in the New York Times (July 20, 1921, p.2; Feb. 17, 1945, p.8; Jan. 9, 1938 p. 12; and Jan. 8, 1945, p.17).

Does Abuminah believe that anyone who denies the absolute, dogmatic facticity of “six million” is a Holocaust® denier? If he does, that makes him a zionist, not Atzmon.

Finally, of the 10 paragraphs, only three actually mention Atzmon by name. The majority of the atttack is devoted to Marxist-sounding slogans, boasts of the morality of the Palestinian cause, and congratulatory backslapping for anti-Atzmon activists. This imbalance leads me to conclude that the attack wasn’t really about Atzmon at all; rather, it seems that Abuminah wanted to boost his own image at Atzmon’s expense. This view explains why he put no effort into being accurate.

Why Abuminah would jeopardize his reputation so recklessly is unclear, but in the absence of a definitive response from him, I have to conclude that he felt personally and politically threatened.

Unlike Abuminah, Atzmon does not buy into the cult of Jewish victimhood or allow “Jewish sensitivities” to limit the boundaries of acceptable political discourse. Abuminah accepts Jews, Jewish history and Jewish culture as given and treats them with kid gloves, but in Atzmon’s hands they are shorn of all moral privilege and subjected to searing, honest criticism. The Wandering Who is an unsparing psychological analysis of the Jewish mind and the sociopathic zionist state. It is essentially a rebuke to the inhibitory “reasonableness” that makes official Palestinian positions more like collaboration than liberation.

Abuminah went berserk on Atzmon because he saw in him the kind of honesty that, as a representative of Palestinian officialdom, he is unable or unwilling to articulate.

The main thing they have in common stems from the fact that they both live in fantasy worlds of their own creation and talk a lot of extreme rightwing nonsense.

The nonsense Anders Breivik speaks is driven in general by his fears about the consequences for Norway of immigration and multiculturalism and, in particular, by his vision of an Islamic takeover.

The nonsense Netanyahu speaks is driven by his perception of Israel in danger of annihilation.

As he tells and sells it, the current biggest threat to Israel’s existence is, of course, Iran. Arguably the single most ridiculous statement he has made to date on this subject was in 2006 when, as the chairman of Likud, he addressed a gathering of Jewish American organizations. He said then, “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany.”

So what Breivik and Netanyahu have in common is, it seems to me, the mania of victimhood.

That’s a condition which Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s longest serving Director of Military Intelligence, warned about in his book Israel’s Fateful Hour. After confirming a Zionist offer to do business with Nazi Germany on terms outlined in a proposed agreement which stated that Zionist forces would “take part in the war on Germany’s side,” (the full story is in my book), Harkabi wrote this:

It is doubtful whether the long history of the Jews, full as it is with oddities and cruel ironies, has ever known such an attempt to make a deal with rabid enemies — of course, ostensibly for reasons of higher political wisdom… Perhaps, for peace of mind, we ought to see this affair as an aberrant episode in Jewish history. Nevertheless, it should alert us to how far extremists may go in times of distress, and where their manias may lead.

We know where Breivik’s mania led him.

We can only speculate about where Netanyahu’s mania will lead his Israel. On present course its final destination seems to be disaster. The question is, will it be disaster only for the Zionist enterprise or disaster for the region and possibly the whole world?

Footnote

A generally accepted definition of mania (there are others) is “mental illness marked by periods of great excitement, euphoria, delusions and over activity.”

In the early 1500s the Spanish Conquistadors came to the shores of what is now known as Florida (Flowery Land in Spanish). At that time the area was populated by groups of Paleo-Indigenous people whose lives were about to change drastically for the worse. The Conquistadors were out for gold and other riches to which purpose the natives were often enslaved. Along with them came Spanish priests whose goal was strictly ideological: the conversion of the natives to Catholicism. The natives would have no choice. From that time onward the sunny and flowery land of Florida proved a place both of wealth and ideological intolerance.

Even when the Spanish lost control of the territory, first to the British and then to the United States, this duality persisted. In the 19th century, for instance, what stood in the way of Florida’s ideological purity was the perseverance of those pesky “Indians.” Andrew Jackson, a rigid-minded fellow if there ever was one, thought he had the answer to this problem when he waged war against the Seminoles who had the audacity to both resist white settlement and harbor runaway black slaves. Eventually he was proved correct. Well-armed racism won the day, and from the 1830s into the 1850s the process of forced eviction cum slaughter of the natives proceeded. By 1845, when Florida became the 27th state of the Union, things were relatively in hand and most of the remaining Seminoles pushed back into the Everglades.

Over the years, the gold that the conquistadors sought transformed itself into citrus fruit and tourism. Today the tourist business brings in over 77 million people a year to Florida and is worth over $57 billion annually to the state’s economy. Three quarters of U.S. oranges are from Florida, as is 40% of the world’s orange juice. Yet, overlaying all this wealth, just like an unhealthy tan, is the persistence of Florida’s ideological obsessions. In contemporary terms, there are two that stand out and we will begin by looking at the one most recently in the news.

Obsessions

1. Cuba – Florida has a very high percentage of Cuban Americans. One third of the population of Miami has Cuban roots and in at least 18 other cities and large towns in the state the percentage approaches half. A high number of these people are staunchly anti-Castro. Among the older generation, this attitude borders on fanaticism. One can see this reflected in the behavior of the state’s political representatives in Congress who fight tooth and nail against any moderation of U.S. sanctions against the Cuban nation–despite the fact that those sanctions help impoverish the country’s people, a state of being Cuban Americans then blame on the Castro government.

For this point of view to be maintained, right-wing Cuban Americans have had to approach history in a highly selective way. When Castro took over in Cuba in 1959 the country was an economic and social wreck. It was ruled by the dictator Fulgencio Batista who had established ties with U.S. mafia families. Gambling and prostitution were major growth industries under this regime. Poverty deepened, illiteracy was widespread, and crime was rampant; nonetheless, Batista was seen as an ally of Washington. That is because he ran an anti-communist secret police, trained and armed by the U.S., which acted as the regime’s Gestapo and SS combined.

When Castro took over in 1959 these conditions changed. To do this he had to nationalize resources, and this step was opposed by a small upper class and a portion of the middle class. It was this group who initially fled to the U.S. Subsequently, they have chosen to forget most of Cuban history prior to Castro’s revolution. They also have a deadly resentment of those who take a different attitude and regularly attempt to ruin anyone who has the audacity to publicly disagree with them. That is how fanatics behave.

Take the recent case of Ozzie Guillen, the outspoken manager of the Miami Marlins baseball team. Guillen made the mistake of saying that he respected Fidel Castro in a recent interview with Time magazine. The result was a “political firestorm” in Miami. Within hours the politicos of south Florida (sounding like the priests of the conquistadors) were calling for his head. The team suspended him for five games and Guillen publicly apologized for “betraying the Latin community” and begged forgiveness in a most groveling way. Nonetheless, elements of the area’s Cuban-American community entered into an orgy of hate and threatened to “boicot” (and therefore economically destroy) Miami’s baseball team unless Guillen was fired.

2. Israel – Florida, and particularly the southern part of the state, has the second highest Jewish population in the U.S. (the first is in New York). Notably, most of them are elderly retirees of passionate Zionist persuasion. One of Miami’s main streets is Yitzhak Rabin Boulevard. Next to the issue of pensions, Israel is what commands their interest. That is why all the Republican primary candidates (except Ron Paul) who visited the state fell over backwards in their support for Israel.

No prominent Florida Jewish resident has yet been silly enough, or brave enough, to go public with anti-Zionist declarations, or statements of admiration for Yasser Arafat. And after an example has been made of Ozzie Guillen, the probability of anyone doing so has to have diminished. This is because the right-wing elements of these two communities are allied and feed off of each other.

Back in the 1980s, when the Cuban American community leaders decided to set up their lobby, originally known as the Cuban American National Foundation, they went to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, otherwise know as AIPAC, for advice and guidance. That relationship has continued ever since.¹ A living representation of this on-going alliance is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, U.S. Representative for Florida’s 18th Congressional District and currently the longest serving woman in Congress. That status has also made her chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Ros-Lehtinen describes herself as a “strong supporter of Israel” including its illegal settlements, and has worked hard to cut funds for any United Nations agency that recognizes Palestinian statehood. Of course, she also hates Fidel Castro.

Conclusion

Over-exposure to the “sunshine state” can obviously get you a bad burn, particularly if you are of an open mind and value the principle of free speech. But that is the way it goes when communities form around repugnant ideological cores that then come to characterize their very identity. For many of the Cuban Americans in Florida, to have something good to say about the Castro regime, even if it can be historically substantiated, is the same as betraying their community. For many Jewish Americans in the same state, having something critical to say about Israel and Zionism, even if it is fact based, is the same as declaring yourself an anti-Semite or perhaps a “self-hating Jew.”

What is particularly scary about all of this is that the entire prejudicial mind-set is carried forth unquestionably and in lock step by millions of people. Americans often would point fingers at the Soviet Union, the Chinese communists, and now the “Muslim world” for this sort of totalitarian thinking. All the while, it was right here in our own sunny backyard.

1. For more information on this please see my book Foreign Policy Inc (Kentucky U. Press 2009).

Question: What can be done to put Palestine back on the agenda?

Answer: Close down the Palestinian Authority and by so doing make Israel fully responsible for its occupation.

As my regular readers know, I advocated this course of action many months ago, but the case for actually doing it has now been well made by Yossi Beilin, the Israeli who has worked harder than any other for real peace with the Palestinians. (Beilin served as a minster in the cabinets of three Israel Prime Ministers – Rabin, Peres and Barak; was the architect on the Israeli side of the Oslo peace process; worked on the Beilin-Abu Mazen talks between 1993 and 1995; and launched the Geneva Accord with Yasser Abed Rabbo in 2003. Incidentally, I agree with Beilin. The Oslo process was not doomed to failure from its beginning. As Arafat once said to me, it could have worked if Rabin had not been assassinated by a Zionist zealot and if the U.S. and other major powers had insisted that Israel honoured the commitments it made).

Beilin delivered his call for action in an open letter to Palestinian “President” Abbas published by Foreign Policy. It was headlined “Dear Abu Mazen, End This Farce.”

Here is part of what Beilin wrote:

I admit that I never believed the moment would come when I would have to write these words. I am doing so because U.S. President Barack Obama has convinced you not to announce, at this point in time, the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority’s institutions and the ‘return of the keys’ of authority for the Palestinian territories to Israel. Because there have never been serious negotiations with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the last three years, and because you did not want to perpetuate the myth that a meaningful dialogue existed, you have been sorely tempted to declare the death of the ‘peace process’ – but the American president urged you to maintain the status quo. It is a mistake to agree to Obama’s request, and you can rectify this.

You and I both understand that the current situation is a ticking time bomb. From my point of view, what is at stake is the loss of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. From yours, it is the loss of the chance for an independent Palestinian state. And from both of our points of view, the failure of the two-state solution risks a renewal of terrible violence.

Anyone who believes these things must take action. You can do it, and for this step you do not need a partner. A declaration of the end of the Oslo process – justified by the fact that the path to a permanent-status agreement is blocked – is the most reasonable, nonviolent option for putting the subject back on the world’s agenda, with the aim of renewing genuine efforts to reach a conclusive solution.

Dissolving the Palestinian Authority and returning daily control to Israel would be an action nobody could ignore. It is not at all similar to a demonstration in front of the Municipality of Ramallah, nor is it similar to appealing to the United Nations for member-state status. This is a step that only you can take, and a step that will demand a response.

I know how difficult it is. I know how many tens of thousands of people depend on the Palestinian Authority for their livelihoods. I am able to appreciate all that you and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have accomplished – establishing Palestinian institutions, growing an economy in impossible conditions, and fostering security in the West Bank.

After all these endeavors, however, you still need to beg the government of Israel to release your money from customs, you still need to beg the Republicans in the U.S. Congress to transfer funds to the Palestinian Authority, and you still need to stand, day after day, before your Palestinian critics and explain why your political efforts are failing. Please don’t let this be the way you end your political mission – a mission that seeks to achieve Palestinian independence without the use of violence.

Do not hesitate for a moment! Do not accept the request of President Obama, who merely wants to be left undisturbed before election day. Do not let Prime Minister Netanyahu hide behind the fig leaf of the Palestinian Authority – impose upon him, once again, the responsibility for the fate of 4 million Palestinians. Remain as the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which will give you the authority to lead the political negotiations if and when they resume.

But for the sake of your own people, and for the sake of peace, you cannot let this farce continue.

After that call for action, Abbas told an unofficial Israeli delegation which included Beilin that he was not prepared to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November and was prepared to rock Obama’s boat. What might that mean?

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is about to meet with Netanyahu and will hand him a letter which will lay out Palestinian positions for an agreement with Israel and give him, Netanyahu, one month to respond positively. If he does not respond positively, the letter will say, Abbas will resume the process of seeking to obtain UN recognition of a Palestinian state.

Momentum on that front could be seriously embarrassing for Obama because it could lead to him having to veto UN recognition of a Palestinian state in the final countdown to the November election. (I can almost hear Obama administration officials saying to Abbas something like, “If you wait until after the president is re-elected, there will not be an American veto).

During his meeting with the unofficial Israeli delegation Abbas confirmed that his officials have discussed dismantling the Palestinian Authority and said that the issue will arise again if the process of seeking to obtain UN recognition of a Palestinian state is resumed.

Could that mean that Abbas will be ready and willing to dismantle the PA in the event of an American veto of UN recognition of a Palestinian state and/or Netanyahu’s confirmation by default that Israel is not remotely interested in peace on any terms acceptable to the Palestinians?

I hope so.

If Abbas does agree to end the farce and dismantle the PA, how would be the Palestinians be represented after the impotent and discredited institution had been put out of its misery?

Short answer, by bringing back to life the Palestine National Council, re-invigorated by elections to it in every place on Planet Earth where Palestinians are living.

In my view dismantling the PA would put Palestine back on the agenda and a re-invigorated PNC could and would keep it there.
But it’s not so simple. Bringing back a re-invigorated PNC as the Palestinian parliament-in-exile and the highest decision-making body on the Palestinian side would require the Palestinian Diaspora to become seriously engaged. The question is: Do enough Diaspora Palestinians care enough to make it happen?

I have previously written, and believe with even more passion today, that if they don’t, they will be charged by future historians with betraying their oppressed brothers and sisters in Palestine that became Israel.

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
– Haile Selassie

Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?
– Bishop Desmond Tutu

These two cautionary admonitions capture the thrust of Günter Grass’ electrifying poem, “What Must Be Said,” that has brought an avalanche of invective – some scurrilous, some vituperative, some even personal vilification – against the man who warns the people of the world as well as the Jewish people of the dangers inherent in the actions of the Zionist controlled government of the State of Israel. Such condemnations avoid direct rebuttal of Grass’ pointed cries of despair as he contemplates continued indifference to the slow yet calculated genocide that exists in Israel’s occupation of Palestine reverting instead to derogatory innuendo, ignorance of conditions prevalent in the occupied territories, ignorance of those determined to destroy Israel, and personal guilt as a German. There is no reflection on the worst sin human kind can inflict on their fellow human beings, the silence of indifference to the plight of the Palestinians or to the potential danger facing the people of the mid-east should Israel pre-emptively strike Iran.

The title of his poem, “What Must Be Said,” echoes the prophets of old, cries of those weeping in the wilderness to heed the obvious, to hear the hypocrisy that masks the reality of a nation that cries for peace as it stealthily steals more land, that demands dismantling of Iran’s nuclear plants as it declares its right to Dimona and untold weapons of mass destruction, that denounces with all brazen duplicity, indeed silences those who criticize the state of Israel while they are free to attack them as anti-Semitic.

“Why silence so long,” Grass asks of himself and answers, as must we all, that we are “slaves to an oppressive lie,” what cannot be said without condemnation because Israel has the “right” to demand and defend what it will. Is it wrong to criticize the obvious? Is it wrong to bare truth when silence once before begot a holocaust? Is it wrong for the German people to mark what they have learned through decades of reflection and reparation and not reveal what they have lived and learned? Is it wrong to speak when devastation threatens, when arrogance buries truth, when the weak have no voice, when the unknown consequence of brutal, raw, preemptive power is imminent?

I would have Günter Grass speak for me, my children and grandchildren, and all others who could suffer yet another World War, by noting the obvious that has been silenced so long:

• a state provided with the fourth greatest military machine in the world to defend less than 6 million people,
• a nation, the only nation in the mid-east with weapons of mass destruction,
• a nation that refuses to sign the mid-east nuclear non-proliferation agreement,
• a nation that has demonstrated its willingness to invade its neighbors in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and drools to bomb Iran,
• a nation that occupies a land provided for it by the same United Nations that gave Israel license to declare itself a nation,
• a nation that damns Iran for proclaiming that it will “wipe Israel off the map,” when in fact it never made such a declaration yet innocently hides its own declaration in the Likud Party Platform that the state it professes to want peace with, Palestine, shall never have a state west of the Jordan,
• a nation that is of such demonstrable threat to world peace that if it is not condemned would be a blot on all who remain silenced and thereby complicit in its crimes, and for such inaction, such indifference we must accept responsibility and condemnation; let the indignant ring their bells of anger and hatred, truth will prevail.

Who better to speak than a citizen of a country that supplies Israel with nuclear submarines capable of terrorizing its neighbors if not the world, submarines provided as reparation to a people destroyed so they can become the destroyer. “Why silence so long?” because “this must be said” with strength, conviction, integrity and honesty, and without personal fear or trepidation because the silence has been broken by a voice that resounds throughout the world in righteous thunder against the greatest danger the world now knows, an Israel that can act with impunity to crush whomever they determine to be their enemy.

Let me close this defense of Günter Grass with a story told by Professor Michael Klein years after he had escaped death at Auschwitz. Klein’s brief narrative is titled “Breaking Silence.” It captures what I believe is the real essence of Günter Grass’ plea, both in time and shame. The story reflects on Klein’s close friend, Salamon Abshalom, who had attempted escape and was to suffer death as a consequence. The story is a parable that parallels our time; what if voices had told of the Jewish plight before the trains took them to the death camps; maybe Salamon Abshalom would still be alive.

“My friend Salamon Abshalom was let out. He was barely able to walk; his hands were tied behind his back. An SS guard took him to the back of the camp yard. … He was led to the gallows and made to climb onto what looked like a stepladder. The noose was tied around his neck.

We stood paralyzed, in bewildered despair. How could the Heavens allow this to happen on this holy Yom Kippur evening? Did the Germans set up the execution specifically for Yom Kippur to humiliate the God of Israel and His people? The silence of the Heavens screamed out in our hearts and in our souls. The desecration of the God of Israel, of the people of Israel, of Yom Kippur, and the humiliation of man created in the image of God proceeded in silence as the German hangman, the Camp’s SS commander, stood over Salamon Abshalom.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a powerful, high pitched voice rang out over the camp yard. It sent chills down our spines, as we heard the cry of “Sh’ma Yisrael…”, Hear O Israel”, as Salamon Abshalom declaimed the eternal proclamation of the Jewish people’s belief in one God….

With his prayer of Sh’ma Yisrael arising from his last breath, he raised all of us standing Zaehlappell to the highest spiritual level. Even as his life was extinguished by the brutal murderer to whom nothing was holy, he still proclaimed the eternity of the Jewish People, in defiance of evil, in defiance of the Germans, in defiance of the silence of humanity, and in defiance of the silence of the Heavens. Salamon Abshalom proclaimed the Godliness of the Jewish People even at a time when God seemed to be totally absent.

I slowly calmed my emotions and tried to analyze my thoughts. The Germans murdered Salamon Abshalom, but I was guilty having been silent in spite of the promise we made to each other in the camps that we will tell the world of what happened. I had kept Salamon Abshalom’s memory a secret for all these years.”

Silence sacrifices the innocent because it allows continuation of slaughter; silence rests in the soul as it acidifies into self-shame; silence speaks no language, offers no aid, but ensures that time will extinguish both hope and guilt. Silence is the voice of the coward and the accomplice. Silence must be extinguished.

So it should not be surprising if the BDS movement itself experiences turmoil. For several years now, the UK Palestinian Soldarity Committee (PSC) has conducted a policy of calling leading activists such as Paul Eisen, Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir — all Jewish — anti-Semitic for daring to point out that those who persecute Arab Muslims and Christians are not just Zionists but are invariably Jewish. That the Jews who have opted to take Israeli citizenship are increasingly racist, belligerent settlers who use their new identity to dispossess, terrorise and murder Palestinians, with the intent of forcing them to leave even the remaining 12 per cent of the land once called Palestine.

These Jews have given Judaism a bad name, causing some “good Jews” to critique their own religious heritage and even disown it, such as American highschooler and winner of the 2012 Martin Luther King Jr Writing Award Jesse Lieberfeld, who came to realise, “I was grouped with the racial supremacists… I was part of a delusion.” For these Jews, Judaism today had been perverted by Zionism. Paying tribute to Jesse, ex-Israeli Gilad Atzmon said, “Journeying from choseness is a life-struggle. From time to time you may feel lonely but you are never alone. Humanity and humanism are there at your side — for all time.”

Atzmon, born and bred in Israel, with holocaust victims in his family, is the latest victim of the UK PSC, which earlier ostracised Eisen for his Der Yassin Remembered group honouring martyred Palestinian Muslims and Christians of the 1948 Nakba, when thousands of Palestinians were killed and hundreds of thousands made permanent refugees.

After being ostracised, Eisen and Shamir dismissed the “gatekeepers” in the movement, and carried on with their analysis and organising from the sidelines, sidelines which are growing just as fast as, if not faster than the mainstream and are now firmly centred on popularising a one-state solution to solve the Palestine-Israel problem.

Atzmon continued to lock horns with the UK PSC establishment, hoping to change it, though it is dominated by the likes of Tony Greenstein with his J-Big (Jews boycotting Israeli goods). No doubt Atzmon’s Sabra heritage steeled him for battle with those supporters of the Palestinians who see the movement as more a way to fight anti-Jewish sentiment (caused by Zionism) than to actually achieve victory for the Palestinians. He decided to write an analysis of his Jewish heritage and how it was transformed over the past century entitled The Wandering Who?¹ His book became a bestseller and he has been touring America and Europe regularly, speaking out bravely and making his gilad.co.uk a must read for all who care about both Palestine and “the plight of the Jews”.

Jewish intellectuals such as Ilan Pappe are following Atzmon’s footsteps and leaving Israel, disgusted with the cynicism and duplicity of the entire Israeli establishment. Atzmon has attracted many admirers — too many, it seems — from among the more mainstream critics of Israel. Richard Falk and John Mearsheimer — both Jewish — endorsed Atzmon’s book, Mearsheimer recommending that the book “should be widely read by Jews and non-Jews alike”.

On 13 March, near the end of Atzmon’s latest tour of the US speaking to pro-Palestinian groups, Electronic Intifada editor Ali Abunimah published a letter at the US Palestinian Community Network (PCN) signed by 23 Palestinian activists, including Columbia University professor Joseph Massad and Omar Barghouti, a founder of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Committee for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and author of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (currently doing an MA in philosophy at Tel Aviv University). The letter called for “the disavowal of the racism and anti-Semitism of Gilad Atzmon”. Abunimah effectively excommunicated Atzmon from participating in pro-Palestinian activities of the US PCN, as he was by the UK PSC. Atzmon wound up his tour the next day with an interview with (Jewish) history professor Norton Mezvinsky of Connecticut State University, at Washington’s Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, where he rebutted the charges against him.

But just as Muslims are loudly called on to disown Islamic terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, so must Jews disown their own Judaic terrorists, reasons Atzmon, who has been leading the way in this politically incorrect battle. Now that the dust has settled, and support for Atzmon has poured in, the letter in retrospect looks like an exercise in hasbara gone wrong. Conspicuous in their absence among signatories are leading Israel critics Noam Chomsky, Norman Finklestein, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, The Progressive’s Matt Rothschild, Tikkun’s Michael Lerner, OpEd’s Rob Kall, and US Congress hopeful Norman Solomon.

It is possible to critique Atzmon for downplaying the imperialism behind Israel’s founding and support, which Abunimah does: “Our struggle is with Zionism, a modern European settler colonial movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that aim to displace indigenous people and build new European societies on their lands.” However, there is nothing wrong with critiquing the problem from a cultural point of view, and the guilty culture just happens to be Jewish. Sadly, there is more than one way to skin the Palestinian cat.

Shamir took the debate a logical step further by posing the question, “To disavow or debate Abunimah”. He was attacked by Abunimah a decade ago, when he “hunted me out of the pro-Palestinian movement, saying that without Shamir, they will win sooner.” After a decade of unrelenting Israeli crimes, Shamir advised Massad, Barghouti and other Arab signatories, “Our Arab brothers will do well if they will stand out of this debate: let the Jews fight out the battle for their identity. As it happens, Gilad is their strongest champion on the Jewish side, they should cheer, not discourage him.”

Perhaps what prompted the letter was fear that BDS was just not mainstream enough. This was the implication behind a dismissal of BDS by Finkelstein, who just a few weeks before the Abunimah screed, called BDS a “cult” and admonished Palestinians to limit their struggle to the “two-state solution”. While himself exposing the “cult” of the holocaust, calling it an “industry” used to promote Israel’s aggressive colonial agenda, Finkelstein disappointed many admirers by suggesting that BDSers are conspirators intent on wiping poor Israel off the tattered old colonial map. “What is the result? There’s no Israel!”

But ironically, Atzmon and Finkelstein are on the same side this time. They are both pro-Palestinian activists and believers in free speech and open debate, not afraid to point the finger at machinations of their co-religionists. Before writing his ill-fated missive, Abunimah, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israel-Palestine Conflict, would have done well to ponder Atzmon’s defence of Finkelstein’s criticism of BDSers for their cultishness. “Finkelstein’s criticism of the solidarity movement is largely valid. The recent expulsion of Palestinians and academics from the UK PSC proves that we aren’t just dealing with a ‘cult’ discourse as Finkelstein suggests, far worse, we are actually dealing with a rabbinical operation that exercises the most repulsive Judaic excommunication tactics.”

“Finkelstein is correct when he suggests that the achievements of the solidarity ‘cult’ operations are pretty limited,” continues Atzmon. He looks beyond the gatewatched BDSers and critics such as Chomsky, Finkelstein, and himself — two-state or one — and predicts “that the solidarity movement is already a mass movement … that the Palestinians and the Arabs will liberate themselves.”

The Lobby is no doubt patting itself on the back, having through obvious pressure on prominent activists helped to weaken its foes for the nth time. This tactic is part of the age-old strategy by those in power of “divide and conquer”. Just as Britian and then the US and Israel have worked to divide up the Muslim world to weaken and control it — even mobilising “Islamic terrorists” (not to mention “Judaic terrorists”) in their schemes — so the domestic representatives of imperialism do the same on the homefront, manipulating soft anti-Zionists.

The tactic was used in the Cold War, using liberals and ex-Communists to isolate Communists from movements critical of imperialism. Now as then, it is necessary not to boycott each other, but to work together without responding to provocation. It is to be expected that the bad guys are going to infiltrate progressive movements and try to split them.

When Saudi Prince Faisal grilled Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal about his alliance with Iran, the Hamas chief explained: “Yes, we have relations with Iran and will do so with whoever supports us. We are a resistance movement, open to the Arabs, to the Muslims and to all countries in the world, and we are not part of any agenda for regional forces.” BDSers may have their differences, but the goal is the liberation of Palestine. Let a hundred flowers blossom.

1. See Al-Ahram Weekly “Jezebel’s Legacy”; Dissident Voice‘s “Into the Mentality of the Occupier/Oppressor” and “Who Is Gilad Atzmon… and, Who Are We?.”

Günter Grass, Germany’s most famous living author and the 1999 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, sparked outrage in Germany on Wednesday with the publication of a poem, “What must be said,” in which he sharply criticizes Israel’s offensive approach towards Iran.

Once again, it is the artist rather than the politician, who tells the truth as it is. Once again it is the Artist rather than the academic who speaks out.

“Why did I wait until now at this advanced age and with the last bit of ink to say: The nuclear power Israel is endangering a world peace that is already fragile?” wrote Grass.

In the poem, published by Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung and other European dailies on Wednesday, Grass also calls for an

unhindered and permanent monitoring of Israel’s nuclear potential and Iran’s nuclear facility through an international entity that the government of both countries would approve.

Israel and some German Jewish prominent voices were quick to react. The Israeli Embassy in Berlin issued a statement offering its own version of ‘What must be said.’

“What must be said is that it is a European tradition to accuse the Jews before the Passover festival of ritual murder,” the statements reads.

Pretty outrageous, don’t you think? In the open Israel together with its supportive Jewish lobbies (AIPAC, AJC) are pushing for a new global conflict. Yet, shamelessly the embassy defies criticism tossing in the air the old blood libel. The appropriate timely question here is why Israel and AIPAC are pushing for a world war and a potential nuclear conflict just before Passover? Can they just wait for another Yom Kippur (atonement day)?

The Israeli Embassy continues, “in the past, it was Christian children whose blood the Jews allegedly used to make their unleavened bread, but today it is the Iranian people that the Jewish state allegedly wants to annihilate.”

Isn’t it really the case? Every military expert suggests that Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran could escalate into a nuclear conflict. If anything Grass tries like others, including your truly, to prevent Israel from celebrating its lethal symptoms once again.

The Israeli embassy noticed though that “Israel is the only state in the world whose right to exist is openly doubted.”

Correct [The "only" state? This is debatable. -- DV Ed.], and so it should be. Israel is a racist, expansionist state, it doesn’t have room amongst nations.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany also called the poem an “aggressive pamphlet of agitation.” I wonder, is it really aggressive to try and restrain an aggressor?

The German newspaper Die Welt, which apparently obtained an advance copy of Grass’ poem, published a response by rabid Zionist Henryk Broder, the country’s most prominent Jewish writer. “Grass always had a problem with Jews, but it has never articulated it as clearly as he has in this poem.” Broder said “Grass has always had a tendency toward megalomania, but this time he is completely nuts.” I would expect Germany’s leading Jewish writer to come with something slightly more astute.

Border however may be correct when he notes that Grass is “haunted by guilt and shame and also driven by the desire to settle history, he is now attempting to disarm the ’cause of the recognizable threat.’”

Wednesday’s poem is not the first time Grass has come out with critical views of Israel. In a 2001 interview with Spiegel Online, he offered his own solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Israel doesn’t just need to clear out of the occupied areas,” he said at the time. “The appropriation of Palestinian territory and its Israeli settlements are also a criminal activity. That not only needs to be stopped — it also needs to be reversed. Otherwise there will be no peace.”

Broder contends that such a statement is “no less than a demand for Israel to not just cede Nablus and Hebron, but also Tel Aviv and Haifa.” He continues, “Grass does not differentiated between the ‘occupied areas’ of 1948 and 1967.” Needless to say that from an ethical perspective Grass is correct; there is no difference between 1948 and 1967. The Jewish State located itself on historic Palestine on the expense of the Palestinian people. I guess that Grass understood already in 2001 that the Jews-only State must be transformed into a ‘State of its Citizens’. Israel should embrace the true notion of peace, universalism and inclusiveness. But I guess that we shouldn’t hold our breath for it is not going to happen soon.

Implicit in this criticism is the idea that all Jews, except a handful of ‘self haters’ support the Israeli state. Such an argument is inherently anti-Semitic, based as it is on the notion of a collective ethnic adherence to a particular political position. It also ascribes guilt for Israel’s crimes upon Jewish people collectively.

As Tony Greenstein has written in The Guardian,

Like the boy who cried wolf, the charge of “anti-semitism” has been made so often against critics of Zionism and the Israeli state that people now have difficulty recognising the genuine article.

So absurd has the situation become that the allegation of anti-semitism is even made when Jews disagree among themselves. That is why the suggestion by Alvin Rosenfield that “anti-Zionism is the form that much of today’s anti-semitism takes” needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

One of the consequences of this abuse of the term “anti-semitism” is to devalue the currency. It renders it almost meaningless because people assume that allegations of anti-semitism are merely the last-ditch resort of those who are incapable of defending the Apartheid Wall that separates the people of the West Bank from their land, the bulldozing of civilian houses, the wanton destruction of olive groves and crops, to say nothing of the theft of their land.

Anti-semitism today is not a mainstream form of racism. It is asylum seekers, Muslims and black people who face stop-and-search, control orders and racial profiling, not Jewish people.

Here is what another Jewish commentator writes on the use of the charge of anti-Semitism against a reporter that was assigned by the New York Times to cover Israel and before she had even written an article she was attacked by right-wing Zionists for being Anti-Semitic:

Yet the real danger in all this is that the rush to throw charges of antisemitism at people who criticise Israel will desensitise vigilance over the real thing. Such tactics are meant to intimidate and paralyse, choke and divert the discussion over Israel’s occupation and policies in the Middle East. But for every person silenced, there are growing numbers who, surveying the quality of the argument, will dismiss the pro-right Israel lobby solely on the basis of the bullying. It isn’t just the nature of the bashing, but its compulsive frequency, especially when set against the paucity of actual arguments presented.

As more commentators are now saying: the trouble with this rightist campaign over Israel is in the content, which always trumps the delivery system. Incidentally, this is the theme of one of the articles that Rudoren was lambasted for tweeting, which quotes Beinart, from the book she wasn’t supposed to like: “Israel does not have a public relations problem; it has a policy problem.”

In February 2012 the David Project released its “white paper” on Israel advocacy in US colleges and universities, titled, “A Burning Campus? Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges.”¹

According to a summary published on Mondoweiss, a well known progressive web site, “the report is surprisingly frank about how the anti-Semitism charge is used as a weapon, what is the best way to attack college professors, and which minority groups are best to, in their words, “co-opt.’”

The anti-Semitism charge as a tactic

The report is candid about how the anti-Semitism charge is used as a tactic. What it determines however, is that the tactic is ultimately ineffective and that other tactics should be employed.

Throughout the report, the authors assert that anti-Semitism is not a pervasive problem on college campuses:

Most American campuses are not hostile environments for most Jewish students . . . The chief concern therefore is not the welfare of Jewish students but that a pervasively negative atmosphere will affect the long-term thinking of current college students, negatively affecting strong bipartisan support for Israel.

Here is an example of some of the advice given in the David Project’s Report:

… There is widespread consensus that civil rights enforcement, including efforts to protect the rights of Jewish students, must respect freedom of speech and the doctrine of academic freedom. Contrary efforts could create a campus backlash against Israel supporters that erodes, rather than enhances, Israel’s standing.

• Moreover, legitimate efforts to combat campus Anti-Semitism could be complicated by overly aggressive complaints, given the current social acceptability of anti-Israelism on many leading campuses.¹

Here is an excerpt from an article, written by Allan C. Brownfeld who is the Editor of the American Council for Judaism Issues, where articles of interest can be found.

Attacks on Jewish critics of Zionism and Israeli policies are growing increasingly strident in an effort to silence and isolate the increasing number of men and women who are speaking out.

One time New Left radical, and now an outspoken neo-conservative, David Horowitz has issued a pamphlet through his David Horowitz Freedom Center entitled “Jewish Enablers Of The War Against Israel.” Written by Steven Plaut, it states that, “One of the most wrenching facts of this war against the Jews is the troubling role played by Jewish enablers of anti-semitism…These figures, American and Israeli…have given legitimacy to the revival of Jew hatred.”

Among those listed are M.I.T. Professor Noam Chomsky (called a “defender of Holocaust Deniers”), retired Princeton Professor Richard Falk, who has investigated human rights abuses for the U.N. Human Rights Council (who is accused of “one-sided indictments of everything Western and a one-sided exoneration of everything anti-Western”), Jennifer Lowenstein, associate director of the Middle East Studies Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Professor Marc Ellis, director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University (accused of building “a theological case for the destruction of Israel”), Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of TIKKUN (referred to as “Rabbi for Jihad”), Joel Beinin, professor of history at Stanford (charged with “subversion of Middle East studies”), and Professor Judith Butler of the University of California at Berkeley (said to “promote Israel’s annihilation”).

Many others are named, including a number of prominent Israelis. Among them are Professors Shlomo Sand and Gadi Algazi of Tel Aviv University, and Neve Gordon and Oron Yiftachel of Ben Gurion University. The author concludes: “the consequences of the venomous words of these Jewish enablers of the war against the Jews are readily apparent.”²

Brownfeld also notes in the same article that:

The effort to intimidate Jewish critics of Zionism and of Israeli policies—a group whose numbers are growing dramatically–is becoming increasingly strident.

The use of the term “self-hating Jew” is often applied to such critics. One place to find this label flung at Jewish critics has been the website Masada2000, whose “S.H.I.T. List” (“Self-hating and/or Israel-Threatening”) contained almost 8,000 names, often with photographs and personal and professional contact information before the site was taken off the web by its host service.²

Brownfeld writes in his conclusion:

The Jewish tradition of wrestling with, among other things, the truth, is now under attack by those who would silence open discussion. This is leading to the alienation of many, in particular young people. Rabbi Sid Schwartz, the founder of Panim-the Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values, speaking of young people in the Jewish community, writes: “In the past decade, I note that fewer and fewer identify as Zionists. Israel plays a much less significant role in their identity formation…and an astounding number hold the organized Jewish community in contempt. I believe the way our community has chosen to ‘defend Israel’ has profoundly alienated the next generation of American Jews… A generation of Jews who see themselves as global citizens will not identify with a community that offers them anything less.”

Freedom of speech, and a search for justice are essential elements of the Jewish tradition—as is “wrestling” with God himself. It is time for the organized American Jewish community to return to those values.²

The argument that criticism of Israel’s policies or of political Zionism is anti-Semitic has little, or no merit. The tactic is used to try to silence or discredit criticism of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. Facts and rational discussion gets drowned out by a barrage of Anti-Semitism allegations which often have little or no basis in reality. Jews who criticize Israel are also attacked for being “self-hating Jews” or Jews who enable Anti-Semitism.

One must acknowledge, however, that Anti-Semitism still exists and that some Anti-Semites express their Anti-Semitism by attacking “the Jewish State” and by blaming all Jews for the actions of “the Jewish State.” Again it is important to make the distinction that all Jews do not support the actions of “the Jewish State” toward the Palestinians or even actions undertaken by Israel in the name of the Jewish People.

One also must not confuse anti-Israelism with anti-Semitism. One can be critical of the actions of a State, or its government, without blaming all of its people or fellow religious adherents. One cannot blame all Christians or Muslims for actions taken by extremists in their community. The same principle applies to Jews and all other groups.

As Michael Selzer writes, “Zionism is a complex phenomenon, adequately understood by only a small percentage of its critics and by even a smaller percentage of its supporters.”³ As Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel and former leader of the World Zionist Congress noted: “To be a Zionist it is not necessary to be mad, but it helps.”⁴

As prominent Israeli writer, A.B. Yehoshua, states on the relationship between Anti-Semitism and Zionism:
Anti-Zionism is not the product of the non-Jews. On the contrary, the Gentiles have always encouraged Zionism, hoping that it would help to rid them of the Jews in their midst. Even today, in a perverse way, a real anti-Semite must be a Zionist.⁵

Zionism is based largely on the belief that Jews have suffered persecution for the last 2,000 years due to the fact that they were strangers in the lands of others. The solution proposed by the Zionists is that Jews should have a land of their own just like the English, French, Germans and other peoples. Ignored is the question that one can be Jewish and English or Jewish and American at the same time.

Religion, or for that matter race or ethnicity, do not have any bearing on citizenship or nationality in countries like the United States and Canada. However this is not the case in “the Jewish State.” Almost entirely absent from political Zionism is discussion of the rights of the Indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. The answer is that they have none.

Tony Greenstein writes on the relationship between Zionism and Anti-Semitism,

What is surprising is that the Zionists appealed to the anti-Semites on the basis of a shared ideological outlook. Nowhere is this clearer than in the memo from the Zionist Federation of Germany to the Nazis (21. 6. 1933).⁶

Lenni Brenner quotes from the Zionist Memorandum to the Nazis.

… An answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural, and moral renewal of Jewry … a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and national values, must also take place in the Jewish national group. For the Jew, too, origin, religion, community of fate and group consciousness must be of decisive significance in the shaping of his life …

On the foundation of the new state, which has established the principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into the total structure so that for us too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible … Our acknowledgement of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and sincere relationship to the German people and its national and racial realities…

an answer to the Jewish Question truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural and moral renewal of Jewry… Precisely because we do not wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we too, are against mixed marriages and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group.⁷

Further evidence of the collaboration between Nazis and the Zionists is a “Nazi-Zionist” medallion issued by Goebbel’s daily Der Angriff to commemorate a joint visit to Zionist Palestine by SS officer Leopold von Mildenstein and Zionist Federation official Kurt Tuchler. A series on their tour was published, “A Nazi Travels to Palestine,” and appeared in Der Angriff in late 1934.⁸

Greenstein writes further:

… Zionism, far from being the anti thesis of anti-Semitism, is its ‘twin in Jewish Garb’ to quote an early pamphlet of the German Anti Zionist Committee. That far from representing a challenge to anti-Semitism, Zionism represents the complete abandonment of any fight against it. That Zionism accepts the main thesis of the anti-Semites, namely that the Jews do not belong in the societies they were born and grew up in. That they are in ‘exile’ (Galut) and hence the mission of the Israeli state is the ‘ingathering of the exiles’.⁹

As David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel and the third major figure in Zionist history after Herzl and Weizmann, noted in respect of the Zionist Organisation: “implicit in their ideology was that the Jews were a foreign element in the countries where they lived.”¹⁰

There are many Jews both inside of Israel and in the Diaspora that are extremely critical of Zionism. A recent article published in the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that 10 percent of Israeli academics are labeled ‘anti-Zionist’ by campus watchdogs. The survey comes up with the names of more than 1,000 Israelis, 800 of whom are academics but also including authors, journalists, public intellectuals, and past and present cabinet ministers.¹¹

Zionism is a political movement and a political ideology. It has little or nothing to do with the religion of Judaism. The majority of Israeli Jews are secular and not religious.¹² Many Christians are Zionists.

Zionism’s aim was to create a national home for the Jews. A number of locations were considered including Palestine, Egypt, Madagascar, Uganda and Argentina.¹³ Stalin even created Birobidzhan as a “Soviet Jewish Homeland.”¹⁴)

Political Zionism, as a secular national movement, is, in a large part, based on Theodore Herzl’s pamphlet Der Judenstaat, usually translated as “The Jewish State.” Theodore Herzl even accepted a British proposal to establish a Jewish “national home” in Uganda (now in what is a part of Kenya), along the lines of the existing White settler colonial states in South Africa, Rhodesia, and Algeria and other places in Africa.¹⁵ Early Zionist leaders often promoted Zionism as a colonial movement.

Anti-Semitism, which is hatred of Jews for them being Jews, is morally wrong, politically wrong, and legally wrong. Jews suffered much persecution in Europe at the hands of Christians who somehow blame all of the Jews for the Roman’s crucifying Jesus even though the crucifixion is a necessary tenant of their faith.

Medieval Anti-Semitism has its origins in religious conflict. Many Christians saw Judaism as a competing religion and a threat to the Christian based political and social order in Europe. There also was an economic component in the role Jews played as intermediator between the political elite and the peasantry, for example as tax collectors. The economic role and frequently restricted role played by Jews in European society created social problems and also made them disposable when necessary, or even convenient. However, the religious, social and economic origins of Anti-Semitism are still an area where there is much divergent opinion and on going debate.

Jews were also made scape goats by many political leaders for economic or political problems. This practice was widespread in Eastern Europe and in Russia. Part of this motivation was the fact the leadership of the Socialist and Communist movements, the primary political opposition, contained many Jews and that these movements were secular and even antireligious and challenged the religiously legitimated feudal order of the day.

Zionism was promoted as an antidote to Jews getting involved with “revolutionary movements” that were challenging the economic and social order dominating Europe at the time.

Herzl was clear in his mind as to the counter-revolutionary nature of the Zionist movement. In a draft of a letter to the German Kaiser Herzl wrote that:

Our movement, which is already widespread, has everywhere to fight an embittered battle with the revolutionary parties which rightly sense an adversary in it. We are in need of encouragement even though it has to be a carefully kept secret.¹⁶

Herzl made this argument, to a Russian Grand Duke the latter replied, regarding the need to keep the Zionist societies legal in Russia that “Pobedonostev ought to hear that. You should tell it to him.”¹⁷

Greenstein comments on this method to try to divert Jews from “revolutionary parties” to Zionism:

Poboedonostev was possibly the most anti-Semitic of the Czar’s ministers, and in conversation with the German Foreign Minister, (later Chancellor), von Bulow, Herzl explained that “the anti-Socialist aspect of Zionism was gone into in the greatest detail.”¹⁸ And when he finally got to see the Kaiser, he lost no time in explaining that “we were taking the Jews away from the revolutionary parties.”¹⁸

This anti-Jewish sentiment culminated in the Holocaust. It is easy to focus only on the Nazis for this evil but Anti-Semitism was wide spread in Britain and France, most of the rest of Europe, and in the United States. In 1939 Canada turned back a boat load of Jewish refugees from Germany on the ship the St. Louis. Here is an excerpt from an article published in the Jewish Independent:

The tragic consequences of this policy were never more clearly illustrated than in Canada’s shameful part in turning back the ship The St. Louis. In 1939, 900 Jewish refugees left Hamburg on this boat bound for Havana, Cuba. Approaching Havana harbor, they discovered they had been duped by a corrupt official and their visas were not valid. Cuba would not allow the ship entry. Jews everywhere appealed for a country to admit these refugees and the St. Louis sailed from port to port in search of asylum. After they were refused entry by the United States, Canada was the last hope for these desperate souls, but King said their plight was not Canada’s problem, and forced the ship to return to Europe. During the terrible years of the Nazi regime, Canada accepted a mere 500 refugees.

In early 1945, by an unidentified Canadian immigration agent was asked how many Jews would be allowed in Canada after the war. He replied, “None is too many.” However, the anti-Jewish, anti-Asian and anti-Black immigration policy at the time was supported by Western political elites. This is a shameful period of the United States, Canada’s and of Europe’s past.

Alfred Lilienthal details how Zionists worked hard to maintain Antisemtic and anti-Jewish Immigration policies to prevent Jews from immigrating to Western counties and to leave them no alternative but to go to Palestine or Israel.¹⁹

Jews in the Arab World

Historically throughout the Arab and Muslim world while there were some problems there is virtually no history of Anti-Semitism in the European sense. Kohavi Shemesh, a former leader of the Black Panthers, an Israeli Oriental Jewish organization, has stated that, contrary to popular belief: “There wasn’t any large-scale anti-Semitism in the Arab countries.”²⁰

In fact many Jews fled persecution in Europe to the Muslim and Arab world. As Yehoshua Porath, a prominent Israeli scholar of Middle East history, writes “the position of the Jews under the Ottoman Empire—one of the most important phases of all Islamic history … the attitude of the Ottoman authorities toward the Jews was generally fair and decent, and in some parts of the empire many Jews held prominent positions.”²¹

There is much evidence of the peaceful and even advantageous relations which between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East. A treasure trove of more than 300,000 individual documents was discovered in the attic, or “geniza,” of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt. Some of these documents were over a thousand years old. According to Allan Brownfeld these documents “presents a vivid picture of Jewish life in the medieval Moslem world, and shows how integrated Jews were in that world, challenging some contemporary ideas of ancient Jewish-Muslem enmity.”²²

Rabbi Glickman the author of Sacred Treasure: The Cairo Genizah, published by Jewish Lights Publishing in 2011, writes:

For Jews the Geniza story contradicts much of what we thought we knew about Jewish history. For the most part, the modern Jewish conception of Jewish history follows the viewpoint of modern Zionism. ‘In ancient days,’ this view suggests, ‘the Jewish people thrived in the Land of Israel. But then foreign invaders destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and expelled the Jewish nation from its land, thus beginning a dark, two-thousand-year period of homelessness and oppression. Throughout that entire time, Jews in exile yearned to return to their homeland, where they could live together in safety and freedom. Now, with the rise of the modern State of Israel, those dreams can finally come true.’ It is a powerful national mythos. Like every national mythos, the story is true in some ways, grossly oversimplified in others, and a reflection of its people’s deepest values and most heartfelt self-perceptions. But it is also, as we learn from the Geniza, fundamentally incorrect. Reading the Geniza documents, we read of a vibrant, prosperous Jewish community, thriving 1,000 years ago in Egypt, the very symbol of Jewish suffering and oppression. There in the very heart of the ‘two thousand years of darkness,’ we find enlightenment, security and success — not the oppression and suffering we have come to expect.”²³

It was not until the intrusion of European Imperial power and the insertion of an aggressive political movement call Zionism and the creation of a “Jewish State” in Palestine that serious political problems between Jews and Arabs and Jews and Muslims arose.

Israel’s military actions in the name of the “Jewish people” have all but virtually destroyed what was once a thriving Jewish-Arab community. Today, only remnants remain. It was, of course, in Israel’s interest to strengthen the Jewish foothold in Palestine by ingathering Jews from the Arab world.

Naim Giladi, an Oriental Jew and one of the founders of the Black Panthers, has been working on the subject of Mossad operations in the Jewish-Arab community to “facilitate” Jewish-Arab immigration to Israel.²⁴ One example of this campaign to “encourage” Zionist immigration were the bombs set off in Baghdad in 1950 to terrorize the Iraqi-Jewish community into fleeing their home of 2,500 years.²⁵ This question is also the subject of Marion Woolfson’s Prophets in Babylon where she argues, from an anti-Zionist Jewish perspective, that the “Jewish Arabs were victims of Zionism.”²⁶

Ella Shohat, who describes herself as an Arab Jew, was born in Israel and raised by Iraqi Jewish parents. She is a professor of Cultural Studies and Women Studies at the City University of New York. Her critique of Zionism focuses on the discrimination and racism Sephardi Jews suffered in Israel due to their Arab cultural makeup.²⁷

Shohat assembled a disturbing list of racist characterizations of Arab Jews made by leading Israeli politicians which include David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Abba Eban.²⁸ Shohat writes,

the Sephardic cultural difference was especially disturbing to a secular Zionism whose claims for representing a single Jewish people were premised not only on a common religious background but also on a common nationality. The strong cultural and historical links that Sephardim shared with the Arab-Muslim world, stronger in many respects than those shared with the Ashkenazim [European Jews], threatened the conception of a homogeneous nation akin to those on which European nationalist movements were based.²⁹

Shohat also details the destruction of the Jewish Arab community caused, in her view, by Zionism. Shohat discusses at length Zionist attempts to lure Arab Jews to Zion. These attempts included Operation Magic Carpet to bring the Jews of Yemen to Israel and Ali Baba to ingather the Jews of Iraq.³⁰ Since the Jews of Iraq showed little or no inclination to go to Israel, to quote Shohat, “since the carrot was insufficient, therefore a stick was necessary.” She provides details of the Zionist bombing campaign directed against Iraqi Jews by Zionist agents to terrorize the Iraqi Jewish community to flee to Israel.³¹ As Shohat writes, “What its proponents themselves called cruel Zionism –namely, the idea that Zionists had to use violent means to dislodge Jews from exile ad achieved its ends.”³²

As Professor Lawrence Davidson writes:

Israeli behaviour has managed to turn the Middle East, a region largely devoid of anti-Semitism until the intrusion of the Zionists, into a potential breeding ground for that obnoxious sentiment. And perhaps they will do the same to the American hinterland. That is called blowback. But the men in Jerusalem will never admit their responsibility for this. They say they always knew the world was anti-Semitic at heart and they will loudly proclaim they were right. It was there all the time, even in the heartland of their greatest ally.

Such is the distorting power of a thought collective.³³

Even today, much to the chagrin of Zionists, there are Arab and Oriental Jews who prefer to remain in their Middle East country of origin and not make Aliyah to the “Jewish State.” Here is a report published in Orthodox Jewish publication, The Guardian, on the 20,000 plus member Iranian Jewish community and posted on True Torah Jews Against Zionism Web site:

Iran’s official Islamic news agency reported a month ago that wealthy Iranian Jews already living in the Zionist State had offered $10,000 to every Jew in Iran who was willing to emigrate to the Zionist State. According to the report, the Jews of Iran rejected the offer because “they are not interested in moving to the occupied territory, since they enjoy full religious freedom in Iran.”

The incentives — ranging from £5,000 a person to £30,000 for families — were offered from a special fund established by wealthy expatriate Jews in an effort to prompt a mass migration to Israel among Iran’s 20,000-strong Jewish community. The offers were made with Israel’s official blessing and were additional to the usual state packages it provides to Jews emigrating from the diaspora.

However, the Society of Iranian Jews dismissed them as “immature political enticements” and said their national identity was not for sale. “The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradable for any amount of money,” the society said in a statement. “Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran’s Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews.”

The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported that the incentives had been doubled after offers of £2,500 a head failed to attract any Iranian Jews to leave for Israel.³⁴

An article published by the BBC on January 31, 2012 reported that Tunisian Jews also had no interest in going to the “Jewish State.” One Tunisian Jew who was interviewed said to the BBC reporter and a listening world, “No one here is afraid.” Another said, “Go to Israel?… I’m not crazy!”³⁵

At a Jewish forum in New York City, November 5, 2003, George Soros, the renown fiancier and philanthropist and supporter of many progressive causes suggested a connection between the resurgence of Anti-Semitism in Europe to the policies of Israel and the United States.

When asked about anti-Semitism in Europe, Soros, who is Jewish, said European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States.

“There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that,” Soros said. “It’s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I’m critical of those policies.”

“If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish,” he said. “I can’t see how one could confront it directly.”³⁶

In a subsequent article for the New York Review of Books, Soros emphasized that:

I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel’s policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel’s policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby’s success in suppressing divergent views.³⁷

It is wrong to say that Zionism represents Judaism or even Jews. It represents some Jews. The majority of Jews live in the United States and other Western countries like Canada. These Jews do not embrace Zionism and emigrate to Israel to be part of a “Jewish State.” The majority of Jews are actually non-Zionist. They do not follow the clarion call of Zionism and emigrate to Israel.

Many people, myself included, want Jews to remain an integral part of Western society as they are an important part of our secular, national, multi-religious, and multi-ethnic culture. If all Jews were to leave Canada, and the United States, the pressure from evangelical Christians who want to establish a society along Christian theological lines would be extreme. Since I am opposed to the mixing of religion and politics (my parents are from Northern Ireland) I want our societies to remain multicultural, secular democracies with all of its citizens being treated equally and favouritism given to no religious or ethnic group.

If someone was anti-Semitic, logic would dictate that they would want Jews to leave their country and emigrate to Israel. Anti-Semites would care little about the human rights of Palestinians, who are actually true Semites.

Anti-Semitism in all of its manifestations is wrong and like all forms of discrimination and racism should be condemned. The main forms of discrimination today are homophobia, racism against North America’s indigenous community, anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia. Richard Falk, who is Jewish, and is the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has said, “I think the Palestinians stand out as the most victimized people in the world.” Falk’s full statement is as follows:

I think that my life’s work in a sense has been associated with helping or identifying with those who are victims of injustice. If we look at the world today, there are many victims of injustice. But I think the Palestinians stand out as the most victimized people in the world. And symbolically, their struggle is one that engages people of conscience everywhere in the world in a manner that resembles the way the anti-apartheid movement worked effectively to undermine South Africa’s claims of sovereignty and legitimacy. And I hope that this small role that I play contributes to that kind of process on behalf of the Palestinians.³⁸

Many Jews were opposed to Zionism in the past and many Jews oppose Zionism today. Hannah Arendt, Isaac Asimov, Elmer Berger, Avraham Burg, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Hans Kohn, Amira Hass, Alfred Lilienthal, Rosa Luxemberg, Ilan Pappe, Leon Trotsky and many other Jewish intellectuals opposed or strongly criticized Zionism.³⁹ Religious Jews opposed Zionism because they saw it as Anti-Semitic and that its aim was to transform Judaism from being a religion to a secular national identity based on ethnicity or race.⁴⁰ Herzl was an atheist and was called Anti-Semitic because of his hatred of Orthodox religious Jews.⁴¹

Lenni Brenner provides documentation of the anti-Semitic tendencies of the Zionists. For example who told a Berlin audience in March 1912 that “each country can absorb only a limited number of Jews, if she doesn’t want disorders in her stomach. Germany already has too many Jews?” It was not Adolf Hitler but Chaim Weizmann. He later became president of the World Zionist Organization and was the first president of the state of Israel.⁴²

Here is another example Brenner unearthed, originally composed in 1917 but republished as late as 1936: “The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social obligation, knows no order nor discipline?” It was not published in Der Sturmer, the Nazi Party paper, but in the organ of the Zionist youth organization, Hashomer Hatzair.⁴³

According to Brenner the above quoted statements reveal, that Zionism itself encouraged and exploited anti-Semitism in the Diaspora. Zionists started from the assumption that anti-Semitism was inevitable and even in a sense justified so long as Jews were outside the land of Israel.⁴⁴

Stephen Lendman also cites anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish motivation targeted against diaspora Jews as a means to create or help build a Jewish state. He quotes True Torah Jews Against Zionism as saying: “believing Zionism protects Jews is probably the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the Jewish People” and accuses Zionists of fostering global anti-Semitism.” Indeed, hatred of Jews and Jewish suffering is the oxygen of the Zionist movement, and from the very beginning has been (used) to deliberately incite hatred to justify the existence of the Zionist state — this is, of course, Machiavellianism raised to the highest order.”⁴⁵

Herzl even stated, ‘the anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies. We want to emigrate as respected people.’⁴⁶

Many Zionists are anti-Semitic. Christian Zionists support the creation of a “Jewish State” as a precursor to the Second Coming of Christ or as they call it “the Rapture” or Armageddon. This means the end of the World. Many Christian Zionists also believe that all Jews must convert to Evangelical Christianity the “true religion” or be killed and sent to hell. However, it must be noted that not all Evangelical Christians are Zionists and not all Evangelicals adopt the “End of the World” narrative of some of their Christian brethren.

Here is an excerpt from an article written by a Christian writer:

Christian Zionism, the belief that the current Zionist state of Israel is an unambiguous portent of the imminent return of Christ, is said to be the largest growing cult in America. With some 70 million Christian evangelicals in the U.S. (a large proportion subscribing to Christian Zionist beliefs), unconditional support of Israel on religious grounds translates into massive lobbying power in a country where the “religious right” has seen itself as the leaders in a fight against the infidels of secularism, Islam, socialism and any one else in their way.

Yet few, if any, scholarly Christian theologians support this view. It is a belief advanced mostly by powerful TV evangelists and lobby groups. The average “garden variety” Christian has little to arm themselves against the deluge of almost hysterical demands on Christians that they must support the Zionists’ absolute entitlement to their colonialist project in the Holy Land with its dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs.⁴⁷

As award-winning journalist and author Robert Fisk writes on Christian Zionism:

Having once been sustained by the progressive left, Israel now draws its principal support from right-wing conservatism of a particularly unpleasant kind. Christian evangelicals believe that all Jews will die if they do not convert to Christianity on the coming of the Messiah. And right-wing racists in Europe – the most prominent of them being Dutch – are welcome in Israel, while the likes of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are not.⁴⁸

This Christian Zionist belief is anti-Semitic in the eyes of many Jews. Here is a Jewish perspective on Christian Zionism:

It should be kept in mind that this whole-hearted evangelical support of Israel and Zionism does not come from any love of the Jewish people or pity for their past sufferings. On the contrary, if a Jew takes the time to reflect upon what these evangelicals and their prophecies seek to accomplish, the only rational thing to do is run the other way. In fact, what the Christian Coalition et. al. have in mind for the Jewish people is annihilation in a fashion that makes the Holocaust look like an amateur operation. Here is their scenario. After the Israelis clear out the Palestinians, the Jews as a whole take the Palestinians place as the accursed of God. First there is the great battle at Armageddon at which most of the Jews are simply slaughtered. And then, in the aftermath, the surviving Jews see the light and convert to (Protestant fundamentalist) Christianity. Poof, a world wiped clean of the Jews. Remember, those who ardently await these events are part of Karl Rove’s Republican base. The Grand Old Party turns out to be partially grounded on a movement of fanatic anti-Semites.⁴⁹

Here is another Jewish perspective on Christian Zionism:

In order for Jesus to return, though, there are a number of things that must happen first. Most, if not all Jews must return to Israel, Israel must control all of the land given to it by God, in particular Jerusalem, because this is where Jesus is set to return and rule the world through a Christian theocracy for 1,000 years before a new heaven and a new earth are created. Once all of these prerequisites are in place, many believe that the Christian church will have fulfilled its earthly duty, at which point it will be “raptured” into the heavens for a period of seven years while the nations of the world, guided by Satan, will attempt to destroy Israel one last time before Jesus returns with the raptured church to defeat the enemies of God.

This theology can be found in any number of [Rev. John] Hagee’s books, including: From Daniel to Doomsday: The Countdown has Begun; Jerusalem Countdown; The Beginning of the End: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the coming of the Antichrist; Final Dawn over Jerusalem; and his most recent (2010), Can America Survive? 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are in the Terminal Generation. Needless to say, this creates a problem because it places the support of Israel, and a very particular path that Israel must follow (read: no two-state solution), along with the future destruction of a large portion of the Jewish population, into the realm of God-ordained necessities for Christian salvation.⁵⁰

Haaretz, the Israeli daily, wrote an editorial on the subject of Christian Zionism titled, “The extreme Israeli right’s alliance with lunatics.”

Against the backdrop of what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his spokesmen call the “delegitimization” of Israel, a “support event” was held in Jerusalem yesterday evening led by American preacher-broadcaster Glenn Beck. Beck was accompanied by personages identified with the Republican Party’s extreme right and a group of Christian Zionist evangelical leaders.

Beck never misses an opportunity to speak ill of U.S. President Barack Obama and to challenge his leadership. His television program fell out of favor even with rightist Fox Broadcasting, which took Beck off the air. A few weeks ago, Beck received publicity for comparing the young Norwegians who were killed by an extreme right-winger to the Hitler Youth. Hundreds of rabbis in the United States, from all streams of Judaism, have expressed disgust with Beck’s incitement on the air against Jewish financier George Soros and Jewish intellectuals “accused” of harboring liberal, leftist views.

In recent years the extreme Israeli right has developed an alliance with the heads of the evangelical movement, who define themselves as Christian Zionists. National religious rabbis and politicians connect with these preachers, including those who spread the belief in the need for another Holocaust of the Jews in order to ensure the resurrection of Jesus. These rabbis and politicians accept donations from these preachers. It is mystifying that people from Israel’s ruling party, Likud, foremost among them Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon and World Likud Chairman Danny Danon, have joined the circle of Beck’s fans. So has Atzmaut MK Einat Wilf.

Anti-Semitism is a hatred of Jews for them being Jews, and only for being Jews, not for what they do or how they act as individuals, or act even as a group or part of a group. No group is above criticism for what they do. Especially when they ethnically cleanse populations, destroy 531 villages, massacre civilians, rape, illegally confiscate property without compensation to the deeded land owners, illegally confiscate bank accounts, bulldoze houses, use targeted assassinations to extra-judicially kill their political opponents, steal nuclear material,⁵¹ repeatedly invade neighbouring countries and impose since 1967 an illegal military occupation, and build “Jewish only settlements” and “Jewish only roads” in what the World Court, the United Nations, numerous human rights organizations and virtually every country in the World says is illegal activity.⁵²

Here is an Israeli newspaper article on a dissertation that studied the historical record on the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Israel. Many supporters of Israel vehemently deny that Israel played any role in the expulsion of the Palestinians, or what the Palestinians call the Nakba, or “Catastrophe.” The results of the study will surprise many ardent Zionists:

A major study by Rafi Nets-Zehngut of Hebrew University’s Leonard Davis Institute shows that more of the Israeli mainstream than previously thought has adopted the critical approach on 1948. Nets-Zehngut contends that this trend preceded the advent of New Historians like Tom Segev and Benny Morris by several years. The study (Nets-Zehngut’s doctoral thesis ) is based on roughly a hundred interviews and more than a thousand publications released over 56 years by the research community, veterans of the 1948 war, media outlets, NGOs and state agencies (including the Education Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces ).
…

The study argues that by the end of the 1970s, most media and scholarly articles in Israel used the critical approach. Virtually all newspaper articles and research studies from the end of the 1980s to 2004 referred to the critical narrative on the Palestinian exodus.

The same is true in about a third of books written by veterans of the 1948 battles. A survey of “Zionist” memoirs published by 1948 veterans between 1949 and 2004 shows that many writers — for instance, Mula Cohen, Nahum Golan and Moshe Carmel — who formerly expressed a strictly Zionist narrative began to develop the critical narrative toward the end of the 1970s. A similar transformation can be seen among scholarly researchers like Netanel Lorch.

Zehngut’s study shows that significant critical research on the Palestinian exodus was undertaken by Jewish scholars outside Israel in the 1950s, three decades before the emergence of the New Historians. In effect, this early use of the critical narrative led to the declassification of archival materials, the sources that were then used in books by Segev, Morris and others.

The study refutes the widespread claim that until the 1980s the Jewish-Israeli media were entirely beholden to the Zionist narrative. The paper shows that the vast majority of studies recognized that Israel had expelled Palestinians in 1948.⁵³

According to a report drawn up by the Israeli government in 1952, Israel had succeeded in expropriating from the Palestinians 73,000 rooms in abandoned houses, 7,800 shops, workshops and warehouses, 5 million Palestinian pounds in bank accounts, and — most important of all — 300,000 hectares of land.⁵⁴

If the Palestinians, or their supporters, complain about the well-documented facts surrounding the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, losing their property to which they had legal title to, losing their personal belongings and even their bank accounts they are called anti-Semitic. Palestinians who tried to return to their homes or to harvest the crops’ they planted were termed “infiltrators” and shot on sight.

Benny Morris, a prominent Israeli historian, documented that around 400 Palestinian infiltrators were killed by Israeli Security Forces each year in 1951, 1952 and 1953. A similar number and probably far more were killed in 1950. One thousand or more Palestinians trying to return to their homes were killed in 1949. At least 100 were killed during 1954-6. In total upward of 2,700 and possibly as many as 5,000 Palestinian infiltrators were killed by the IDF, police, and civilians along Israel’s borders between 1949 and 1956. In all probability the majority of those killed were unarmed ‘economic’ and social infiltrators, i.e., Palestinians trying to return to their homes or try to harvest their crops.⁵⁵

No country, or people, has an exemption from criticism for such acts. This is a universal principle that protects all people including Jews, Palestinians, and everyone else.

Many anti-Semites, including many Nazis, were Zionists who wanted to expel the Jews from Europe and send them to Palestine.⁵⁶ For example Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazis Minister for the Eastern Territories was Hitler’s favourite theoretician. Rosenberg argued that ‘Zionism must be vigorously supported in order to encourage a significant number of German Jews to leave for Palestine or other destinations.’⁵⁷ Rosenberg was fond of citing the Zionists’ own arguments that the Jews were a separate people. He took this as ‘a clear affirmation that all Jews were aliens in Germany…’ ‘Rosenberg’s argument that the Zionist movement could be utilized to promote the political, social and cultural segregation of Jews in Germany, as well as their emigration, was eventually transformed into policy by the Hitler regime after 1933.’⁵⁸

Arthur James Balfour who’s written statement, “The Balfour Declaration,” “committed” the British Empire to support the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine provided “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

Just about everyone who cites with approval the first part of the Balfour Declaration ignores the last two promises. Arthur James Balfour was also an anti-Semite. Here is an excerpt from an article written by Lamis Andoni:

Balfour was a known anti-Semite who as prime minister supported and pushed for the 1905 Aliens Act that sought to curb Eastern European, particularly Jewish, immigration to Britain.

Over the years, he grew convinced that Zionism – the movement that advocated the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine – offered a convenient solution to the ‘Jewish problem’. Like other anti-Semites he did not believe that Jews belonged in Europe and felt that they comprised a separate race and religion that could not live in harmony within their countries of residence.

He expressed these views clearly in an introduction he wrote to a book called History of Zionism by Nahum Sokolow. Calling on Europeans to support Zionism, Balfour wrote: “For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavour to mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to absorb. Surely, for this if for no other reason it should receive our support.”

While many Jews sought assimilation, and equality the Zionist movement established by Theodore Herzl sought a separate entity for the Jews. It did not see the Jewish problem as one of segregation and discrimination that could be addressed through a struggle for universal rights but sought a more radical solution – to take Jews out of Europe.⁵⁹

In the 1905 debate in the House of Commons over the Aliens Act then British Prime Minister Balfour made the following statement: “the undoubted evils that had fallen upon the country from an immigration which was largely Jewish.”⁶⁰

Balfour, the Anti-Semite, is of course a hero to the Zionists:

Even today, the headquarters of the British Zionist Federation, Balfour House, is named after Arthur James Balfour, the anti-semite who introduced the 1905 Aliens Act to keep Jews out of Britain. Contrary to the accusation that anti-Zionism and anti-semitism are one and the same thing, it is Zionism and anti-semitism that share the belief that Jews are strangers in the lands they were born and brought up in.⁶¹

The only Jewish member of Lloyd George’s cabinet when Great Britain first threw its weight behind Zionism in 1917, Sir Edwin Montagu, was adamantly opposed to the creation of a Jewish state. He attacked the Balfour Declaration and Zionism because he believed they were anti-Semitic. Montagu argued in his Memorandum, “The anti-Semitism of the Present Government,” that Zionism and Anti-Semitism were based on the same premise, namely that Jews and non-Jews could not co-exist.

Greenstein summarizes the opposition of Britain’s Jewish community to the Balfour Declaration as follows:

On November 2, 1917 the Balfour Declaration was issued which promised the rights of colonisation under British Mandate to the Zionists. There was a vigorous rearguard action fought by the leaders of British Jewry, including the sole Jewish member of the Lloyd George Cabinet, Edwin Montagu, against the Declaration. In a letter to The Times, David Alexander and Claude Montefiore of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Conjoint Foreign Committee wrote: (24. 5. 17):

A Jewish political nationality was an anachronism … (it would) compromise the Jews wherever they had secured equal rights for all.⁶²

Lenni Brenner, a Marxist Jewish Historian, writes extensively about the link between Zionism and anti-Semitism:

… Arthur Balfour, who, as Prime Minister, had spoken against Jewish immigration, in 1905. Weizmann knew the full extent of Balfour’s anti-semitism, as he had unburdened himself of his philosophy to the Zionist on 12 December 1914. In a private letter, Weizmann wrote: “He told me how he had once had a long talk with Cosima Wagner at Bayreuth and that he shared many of her anti-Semitic postulates.”⁶³

Zionism is a political ideology and is not the same thing as Judaism or being Jewish. They are very different. Judaism has existed for thousands of years as a religion. Political Zionism, as espoused by Herzl, has only existed since the 1890′s. Anti-Semitism has many similarities to Zionism as it is based on the separation of Jews and non-Jews. And many Zionists are in fact Anti-Semites and want to get rid of the Jews from their country and send them to Palestine.

It could be argued that Zionism and Anti-Semitism are the opposite sides of the same coin. As I have said before I want Jews to be safe in their countries of citizenship and all other countries. I also want the same for the Palestinians and every other people in the World.

1. See A Burning Campus? Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges.
2. “Freedom of Speech Is under Increasing Assault Within the Jewish Community,” by Allan C. Brownfeld, American Council for Judaism, Winter 2012.
3. “Introduction” by Michael Selzer in Zionism Reconsidered, edited by Michael Selzer, (London: The Macmillian Company, 1970) p. xi. This conclusion is based on Michael Selzer’s book, The Wineskin and the Wizard: The Problem of Jewish Power in the Context of East European Jewish History, (New York: Macmillian, 1970).
4. Amos Elon, The Israelis-Founders and Sons, (Weidenfeld, 1971), p.106.
5. Jewish Chronicle (Britain) January 22, 1982 cited in “Anti-Semitism and its Zionist Shadow,” by Tony Greenstein, (Self published Pamphlet, 1987) p. 3.
6. “Anti-Semitism and its Zionist Shadow,” by Tony Greenstein, (Self published Pamphlet, 1987) p. 2.
7. Joachim Prinz, Zionism under the Nazi Government, Young Zionist (London, November 1937.) Quoted in Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, (London: Croom Helm, 1983), p. 48-49 citing Lucy Dawidowicz, A Holocaust Reader, p. 150-155.
8. See Jacob Boas, “A Nazi Travels to Palestine,” History Today 30.1 (1980). The original article by Leopold von Mildstein, “A Nazi Voyages to Palestine,” appeared in Der Angriff (Attack), Berlin (27 September 1934). A photograph of the commemorative medallion is available online.
9. “Anti-Semitism and its Zionist Shadow,” by Tony Greenstein, (Self published Pamphlet, 1987) p. 3.
10. M Pearlmann, Ben-Gurion Looks Back, Weidenfeld, 1965, p. 239 cited in Greenstein, p. 3.
11. “10 percent of Israeli academics labeled ‘anti-Zionist’ by campus watchdogs,” by Talila Nesher, Haaretz, January 22, 2012.
12. “Who is a Jew?” by Rebecca Weiner, Jewish Virtual Library.
13. See Wikipedia for a discussion of possible locations and the motivations for such proposals. See also “Balfour Declaration.”
14. See Stalin’s Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998
15. “The Uganda Proposal,” Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 2009-07-08.
16. Herzl’s Complete Diaries, p. 596.
17. Herzl’s Complete Diaries, p. 657.
18. Herzl’s Complete Diaries, p. 666.
19. See Alfred Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection II: What Price Peace, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: North American, 1982). Also see Yosef Grodazinsky,
    In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Struggle Between the Jews and the Zionists in the Aftermath of World War II, (Commom Courage Press: Monroe, Maine, 2004).
20. Israleft Biweekly News Service, November 20, 1972, p. 7, cited in Charles Glass, “Jews Against Zionism: Israeli Jewish Anti-Zionism,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn 1975/ Winter 1976, p. 65.
21. “Review: Mrs. Peters’s Palestine,” by Yehoshua Porath, New York Review of Books, 32(21 & 22), January 16, 1986. Porath cites Bernard Lewis’s The Jews of Islam (Princeton University Press) in support of his argument.
22. “Uncovered Documents Tell the Story of Cooperation Between Muslims and Jews in Medieval Cairo,” by Allan C. Brownfeld, Issues (The American Council for Judaism), Winter 2012, p. 5. See also Shelomo Dov Goitein, a scholar of Islamic history at the Hebrew University in the late 1940s 5-volume study, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World, published over a 20-year period from 1967 to 1988, is a groundbreaking work of social history. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, Vol. I: Economic Foundations, (University of California Press, 2000).
23. Quoted in Allan C. Brownfeld.
24. For an example of his work see Naim Giladi, “The Iraqi Jews and Their Coming to Israel,” The Black Panther, September 11, 1972, reprinted in Documents from Israel 1967-1973, Davis and Mezvinsky eds., p. 126-133. Also see Naeim Giladi, Ben-Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and The Mossad Eliminated Jews, (Dandelion Books, Tempe, Arizona, 2003).
25. Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, The Fate of the Jews, (New York: Times Books, 1983), p. 230-232.
26. Marion Woolfson, Prophets in Babylon, (London: Faber and Faber, 1980), p. 15-17.
27. Ella Habiba Shohat, “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victimsm,” in Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel, Edited by Adam Shatz, (Nation Books: New York, 2004), p. 227-322.
28. Shohat, p. 280-286.
29. Shohat, p. 280-307.
30. Shohat, p. 287.
31. Shohat, p. 291.
32. Shohat, p. 292.
33. “The blinding power of Israel’s closed information environment,” by Lawrence Davidson, Redress, 27 October, 2011.
34. “Iranian Jews Say No to Zionist Incentives,” Die Tzeitung, Guardian, August 15, 2007. See also “Iranian Jews slam ‘emigrant stunt’,” CNN, December 26, 2007. “What Iran’s Jews Say,” by Roger Cohen, New York Times, February 22, 2009. “25,000 Jews live in Iran,” by Mike Whitney, Information Clearing House, August 17, 2010.
35. “Tunisia’s Jews shun ‘migrate to Israel’ idea,” by Wyre Davies, BBC News Africa, 31 January, 2012. See also “The BBC Censors its own Report on Tunisia’s Jews Saying ‘No’ to Israel,” by Alan Hart, Dissident Voice, February 1st, 2012.
36. “In rare Jewish appearance, George Soros says Jews and Israel cause anti- Semitism,” by Uriel Heilman, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 10, 2003. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
37. George Soros, “On Israel, America and AIPAC,” New York Review of Books, April 12, 2007. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
    
38. “Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza Richard Falk interviewed by Michael Slate …I think the Palestinians stand out as the most victimized people in the world,” Revolution Online, 20 January, 2009.
39. See “Einstein on Palestine and Zionism,” by Edward C. Corrigan, Dissident Voice, January 9th, 2010; and “Jewish Critics of Zionism and of Israel’s Treatment of the Palestinians,” by Edward C. Corrigan, Dissident Voice, April 16, 2010; “Israeli Criticism of Zionism and the Treatment of Palestinians: The Politicians,” by Edward C.Corrigan, Dissident Voice, July 30, 2010; and “Israeli Criticism of Zionism and of Israel’s Treatment of the Palestinians: The Academics and Activists,” Dissident Voice, August 21st, 2010.
40. See The Transformation: The Case of the Neturei Karta, 2nd Edition (NY: Hachomo, 1989).
41. For a more extensive discussion of Jewish religious opposition see my article, “Jewish Criticism of Zionism” by Edward C. Corrigan, Middle East Policy (Formerly American-Arab Affairs) Winter 1990-91, p. 98-103.
42. Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, (London: Croom Helm, 1983), p. 34.
43. Brenner, p. 22-23.
44. Review of Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by Lenni Brenner (Croom Helm) Edward Mortimer, “Contradiction, collusion and controversy,” The Times (London), February 11, 1984.
45. “Jews Against Zionism,” by Stephen Lendman, Dissident Voice, December 8, 2009.
46. Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p. 83-84
47. “Why Christian Zionism is nothing short of outright heresy,” by Craig Nielsen, Mondoweiss, January 23, 2012.
48. “The ‘invented people’ stand little chance,” by Robert Fisk, Independent, 14 January 2012. See also “Millions of Evangelical Christians Want to Start WW III to Speed the “Second Coming” …, Neocons are Using Religion to Rile Them Up to Justify War Against Iran,” by Washington’s Blog, February 18, 2012.
49. “Christian Zionism and American Foreign Policy: Paving the Road to Hell in Palestine,” by Lawrence Davidson published in Logos Journal, Winter 2005.
50. “Our eyewitness report on Christians United For Israel’s annual Washington conference,” Special to JewsOnFirst.org, July 29, 2011.
51. “Israel stole uranium from U.S., report will show,” by Kristin Dailey, Daily Star (Lebanon), December 05, 2011.
52. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as well as the massacres, rapes and illegal confiscation of Palestinian property, is well documented by Israeli historians. Books published on the expulsion of the Palestinians by Israelis include Tom Segev, 1949. The First Israelis, (New York: Free Press MacMillan, 1986); Simcha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987); Benny Morris, The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem 1947-1949, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Avi Schlaim, Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians, (Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992); Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Original Sins, (New York: Olive Branch Press, 1993); and Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006). There are many more Israeli authorities that confirm the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1947-1949 and again in 1967.
53. “A softer touch on the Nakba,” by Akiva Eldar, Haaretz, January 24, 2012.
54. Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel, Myth and Realities, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), p. 107; see also Michael R. Fischbach, Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, (New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2003).
55. Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez War, (Clarendon Pressm, 1997), p. 147.
56. Brenner, p. 86-89
57. Francis Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question, (I.B. Tauris, London, 1985), p. 25.
58. Francis Nicosia, p. 70.
59. “From Balfour to Obama: The dominant imperial power may have changed but treatment of the Palestinians remains much the same,” by Lamis Andoni, Al-jazeera, November 6, 2010.
60. Hansard. 10. 7. 1905, cited in “Anti-Semitism and its Zionist Shadow,” by Tony Greenstein, (Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 1987), p. 32.
61. “The seamy side of solidarity,” by Tony Greenstein, The Guardian, February 19, 2007.
62. Walter Lacquer, A History of Zionism, (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1972, New York), p. 194. See also Leonard Stein, The Balfour Declaration, (Weidenfeld & Nicholson) p. 442-461 cited in “Anti-Semitism and its Zionist Shadow,” by Tony Greenstein, (Palestine Solidarity Committee, 1987), p. 22.
63. Brenner, Zionism in the Age of Dictators, citing Meyer Weisgal (ed.), The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Letters, vol. VII p. 81. After the Holocaust Weizmann could not reveal the anti-Semitism of Zionism’s great patron. He changed the record in Trial and Error: “Mr Balfour mentioned that, two years before, he had been in Bayreuth, and that he had talked with Frau Cosima Wagner, the widow of the composer, who had raised the subject of the Jews. I interrupted Mr Balfour …” ((Brenner, citing Meyer Weisgal (ed.), The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann Letters, vol. VII p. 81. After the Holocaust Weizmann could not reveal the anti-Semitism of Zionism’s great patron. He changed the record in Trial and Error: “Mr Balfour mentioned that, two years before, he had been in Bayreuth, and that he had talked with Frau Cosima Wagner, the widow of the composer, who had raised the subject of the Jews. I interrupted Mr Balfour …” (p.153).

The author of such disarming prose, the grandson of that “veteran Zionist,” is internationally-acclaimed musician and composer, Gilad Atzmon. Born and raised in Israel–a Sabra—Atzmon, like his peers, “didn’t see the Palestinians” around him. “Supremacy,” he writes, “was brewed into our souls.”

And then a strange thing happened. “On a very late-night jazz programme, I heard Bird (Charlie Parker) with Strings. I was knocked down. The music was more organic, poetic, sentimental and wilder than anything I had ever heard. …” And the most extraordinary thing about Atzmon’s first encounter with the iconic American saxophonist? “I realized that Parker was actually a black man. … In my world, it was only Jews who were associated with anyting good. Bird was the beginning of a journey.”

Now in his 50s, with a luminous musical career of his own, Atzmon has published two novels, and numerous essays and articles at websites and periodicals worldwide. The Wandering Who is a collection of 22 essays that serve as a baedeker for those who want to accompany him on his extraordinary “journey” of self-discovery and self-actualization. The book’s sectional titles include, “Identity vs. Identifying”; “Unconsciousness Is the Discourse of the Goyim”; “Historicity & Factuality vs. Fantasy and Phantasm”; and “Connecting the Dots.” Accompany Atzmon and one finds oneself sharpening one’s own tools for self-interrogation and reflection, wandering with him to discover our own elusive “who.”

His broad range of subjects include: identity; history; myths; perceptions and misperceptions; and the way “pre-traumatic stress” has shaped the nation of Israel, and, indeed, shaped much of our world these past 60-odd years. That first encounter with “Bird” opened Atzmon to the world of possibilities beyond Israel’s self-imposed, exclusionary borders: “Through music… I learned to listen. Rather than looking at history or analysing its evolution in material terms, it is listening that stands at the core of deep comprehension. Ethical behaviour comes into play when the eyes are shut and the echoes of conscience can form a tune within one’s soul. To empathise is to accept the primacy of the ear.”

His journey takes him to London in his 20s, where he hones his abilities to “listen” and “empathize” and establishes himself as a jazz musician who has been uniquely influenced by Arab music! And his mind is as agile as his fingering on his sax or clarinet: “In London, in what I often define as my ‘self-imposed exile,’ I grasped that Israel and Zionism were just parts of the wider Jewish problem.” We’re 15 pages into the book and Atzmon is broaching subject matter that could break a career in the U.S. or land him in jail in some parts of Europe! He is acutely aware of the thin ice he’s treading on, but he’s a born investigator and thinker, and he won’t be deterred: “… hardly any commentator is courageous enough to wonder what the word ‘Jew’ stands for. This question… is still taboo within Western discourse.” Our cicerone wants his readers and “listeners” to know that the road ahead will be arduous and even perilous:

“I deal with Jewish Ideology, Jewish identity politics, and the Jewish political discourse. I ask what being a Jew entails. I am searching for the metaphysical, spiritual and socio-political connotations.”

He divides “those who call themselves Jews” into three main categories:

1. Those who follow Judaism.
2. Those who regard themselves as human beings that happen to be of Jewish origin.
3. Those who put their Jewish-ness over and above all of their other traits.

Throughout this book, it is the third category that Atzmon considers “problematic,” and which he probes with magnifying glass and scalpel. It is a category that includes Zionists and anti-Zionists, religious and non-religious Jews. He quotes Chaim Weizmann: “There are no English, French, German or American Jews, but only Jews living in England, France, Germany or America.” But, again, what exactly is “Jewish-ness”?

We travel down labyrinths of history, myths, power politics, enfranchisemen t and disenfranchisement to ferret meanings. Judaism, we find, is an amalgamation of stories, legends, poems composed during “the Babylonian exile”—and a sense of exile and alienation are categorical indicators of “Jewish-ness.” Important clues come in the Bible’s Book of Esther.

(Parenthetically, I’ll note here that during his recent visit to the US, reportedly to discuss what must be done about Iran’s purported nuclear weapons program, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu handed the President of the world’s remaining super-power a copy of the Book of Esther. Whether or not the Prime Minister accompanied the gift with an order to “Read it!”—has not been reported!)

“In the Book of Esther,” Atzmon writes, “the Jews rescue themselves, and even get to mete out revenge.” To wit: Haman, the Persian King’s Prime Minister, “plots to have all the Jews in the Persian empire killed in revenge for a refusal by Esther’s cousin Mordechai to bow to him in respect.” Esther, “a brave and beautiful Jewish queen,” has never revealed her “Jewish” identity to her husband, the King! But, now she warns him of Haman’s murderous plot. The King has Haman and his 10 sons–innocent bystanders, really–hanged on gallows originally intended for Mordechai and allows the Jews to take up arms and slay their enemies.

“The moral,” writes Atzmon, is clear: “If Jews want to survive, they had better infiltrate the corridors of power.” And this imperative to bond with power is an essential characteristic of “Jewishness”—notable in Esther’s time and in our contemporary world of AIPAC, think-tanks, media mesmerism and “message” control.

If the roots of “Jewishness”—separateness and “exceptionalism,” non-assimilation, exilic indoctrination—are discernable in the old-time religion of the Book of Esther, they ramify into something remarkably different—yet genetically akin—in what Atzmon and others call “the Holocaust religion.” “Jewishness,” he writes, “is the materialisation of fear politics into a pragmatic agenda.” In the modern Holocaust religion, vengeful, omnipotent Yahweh has been replaced by the unchallengeable “truths” of the Holocaust—past suffering cited to justify Israel’s ethnic cleansing and expansionism, its formidable arsenal of nukes and other weapons, its threats and wars of aggression.

“It took me many years,” Atzmon writes, “to understand that the Holocaust, the core belief of the contemporary Jewish faith, was not at all an historical narrative, freely debated by historians, intellectuals and ordinary people. … historical narratives do not need the protection of the law and political lobbies. … The fate of my great-grandmother was not so different from hundreds of thousands of German civilians who died in deliberate, indiscrimate bombing, just because they were Germans. Similarly, the people in Hiroshima, who died just because they were Japanese. Three million Vietnamese died just because they were Vietnamese and 1.3 million Iraqis died because they were Iraqis.”

In many ways, Atzmon’s book is a cri de couer addressed to Jews, specifically, but to humanity, generally, to grow up! To reach beyond tribalism and the politics of fear and vengeance. His style is dialectical, positing thesis and antithesis, arguing with himself and anticipating his readers’ (or opponents’) arguments to arrive at a plausible synthesis.

The book is also a House of Mirrors—distorted and non-so—and Atzmon is our guide as he meditates on the various reflected aspects of himself and others while searching for the true notes and the high notes.

A group led by a pro-Palestinian rights campaigner, Ali Abunimah, put out a call for a disavowal of Gilad Atzmon, “a musician born in Israel and currently living in the United Kingdom, [who] has taken on the self-appointed task of defining for the Palestinian movement the nature of our struggle, and the philosophy underpinning it.”² [italics added]

Self-appointed? Please. Do humans need an appointment to oppose social injustices?

The anti-Atzmon signatories state they know best how to define for the Palestinian movement the nature of the Palestinian struggle; that may very well be so, and that is something that is rightfully promoted by Palestinians in the struggle.

I have not read every word or heard every speech by Atzmon, but I never came to a conclusion that he was defining anything for Palestinians. Atzmon has been focused on the occupiers, a group he stems from, and what makes them occupier-oppressors, and as a member of the group (he has since renounced allegiance with), and as a human being he has every right (indeed, it should be a duty of every human) to criticize the war crimes and crimes against peace and humanity perpetrated by another group.

Surprisingly, the signatories resort to the gutter of Zionist tactics and hurl the abused canard of racism and anti-Semitism against Atzmon. Yet Atzmon’s entire thesis is predicated upon the fact that everyone belongs to the group called Homo sapiens. He is opposed to fractionalization into groups that ignores the basic humanity of all and the rights that all humans must share equally. He opposes group/tribal supremacism and calls for the dignity of all humans to be respected.

That members of one group in large numbers deny the humanity of another group of humans must be opposed. However, it is not merely sufficient to oppose this inhumanity; it should be eradicated so that such inhumanity never surfaces again. To solve the scourge of inhumanity that arises within a group, it is only logical that the group be studied in depth and the causes of the inhumanity be identified so that solutions may be forthcoming.

Atzmon does not mince words. He states matters boldly and forthrightly. I do not always agree with his wording, and I diverge from some of his findings and conclusions. Nonetheless, his basic thesis — that we are all human beings and must treat and respect each other as equally endowed with human rights — is a thesis with which I fully agree.

Abunimah et al. charge:

Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

Atzmon, say the signatories, claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal…” How to respond? I am left wondering what exactly “Jewish politics” is? Is it politics inside Israel where Zionism is thoroughly dominant, or does it include politics in Canada, the US, and the UK, and elsewhere where the Jewish Lobby holds extraordinary sway? Politics is, by its very nature, tribal. I disagree with it, but it is a fact.

As far as I understand, Atzmon does not say that one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine. Abunimah et al. have set up a strawman to criticize. I understand that Atzmon finds it is unnecessary to self-describe as a Jew and that such self-description obfuscates the thesis that we are all humans. For this writer, to identify as a Jew does not mean to be a Zionist. A core principle of progressivism is respect for diversity. That people identify with any group is non-problematic as long as the basic humanity of everyone is respected.

The signatories may well be characterized as having sprung a “vicious attack” on Atzmon. Describing Atzmon as being obsessed with “Jewishness” is like criticizing a Canadian patriot with being obsessed with “Canadianness” or a devout Catholic as being obsessed with “Christianness” because Atzmon was born a Jew. When a group starts charging others with racism and anti-Semitism, then they should be careful of uttering allegations that smack of racism and anti-Semitism.

Abunimah et al. state without offering one example in their call: “… as Palestinians, we see such [Atzmon's] language as immoral and completely outside the core foundations of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests.”

This is splittism; it is disunity; it is anti-solidarizing. It is well known that a house split against itself will fall. I am sure that many Palestinians support Atzmon for having the courage to accuse a large segment of Jewry of condoning and supporting Zionism and its crimes. What is important is that there is a solidarity against all racism, Zionism, colonialism, and imperialism, even though there will be disagreements on tactics in achieving social justice.

The anti-Atzmon signatories “reaffirm that there is no room in this historic and foundational analysis of our struggle for any attacks on our Jewish allies, Jews, or Judaism…” With all due respect, this is misleading and just plain wrong. First, as stated, I do not find that Atzmon is defining the struggle for Palestinians as Abunimah et al. claim (without presenting one piece of clear evidence). Second, while solidarity is crucial to resistance and revolutionary movements, the tenets of an ideology (or in this case, a religion) are — and must be — challengeable. Judaism must be as open to honest scrutiny as any other religion like Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc.

I agree wholeheartedly with the signatories that anti-Semitic or racist language is anathema.

I support wholeheartedly the Palestinian people’s struggle for social justice, for human rights, for the rights to regain what has been criminally dispossessed from them. However, Abunimah et al. appear disingenuous when they write, “We will not allow a false sense of expediency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fraternity with all liberation struggles and movements for justice.” First, who is driving who? The only driving that is palpable from their invective (because they are maligning Atzmon) is to drive Atzmon out. Second, I am unaware of anyone driving Abunimah et al. into alliance with Atzmon or that he has requested such a specific alliance. Third, Atzmon has not sought leadership — that I know of — to any political fraternity or liberation struggle. He is a free agent, and free agents have what any free human has, the right to speak freely, and particularly to give voice to their conscience when they see evil. No one has the right to deprive another human of this freedom.

Palestinians must guide their liberation struggle. They must protect the integrity of their movement; but the integrity of a movement is impaired by wilfully attacking others — especially the human rights and freedom of others — outside of the movement. If Palestinians want to go it alone against the Zionists, then that is their prerogative. I believe, nonetheless, that Atzmon is strategically correct and Abunimah et al. are strategically wrong. Zionism, racism, colonialism, and imperialism are best defeated when the tidal wave of a united humanity washes away the evils of inhumanity.

May all humans conspicuously recognize, affirm, and support the humanity and dignity of Palestinians, the humanity and dignity of Tamils, the humanity and dignity of Indigenous peoples everywhere, and the humanity and dignity of all peoples who suffer occupation and oppression wherever they may be.

1. I did so myself when one writer opined that Jews were a monolith. See “This is Not Progressivism,” Dissident Voice, 6 February 2006.
2. Ali Abunimah, et al., “Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon,” US Palestinian Community Network, 13 March 2012.

Last Saturday The Daily Telegraph, citing The Wall Street Journal, reported that “military planners have asked for emergency funding from Congress to address a perceived shortfall in defence capabilities that could undermine the ability of US forces to respond to an Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Plans are underway “to modify weapons systems on ships that are at present vulnerable to Iranian fast-attack boats, many of which carry anti-ship missiles,” the Telegraph averred.

Feeling the heat from pro-Israeli lobby shops and congressional grifters, President Obama told The Atlantic on Friday:

When I say we’re not taking any option off the table, we mean it. I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff. I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.

In other words, despite repeated assertions by Iran that its nuclear program is strictly for civilian, not military, purposes facts borne out by multiple on-the-ground inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and assessments by American spy agencies, the bar for Iranian “compliance” is continually set higher, moved from an “active program” to a mere “capability,” it is now clear that war is the first, last, indeed only “option.”

With this mind, Times’ journalists James Risen and Mark Mazzetti informed us that lying “at the center of the debate is the murky question of the ultimate ambitions of the leaders in Tehran.”

While there is “no dispute among American, Israeli and European intelligence officials that Iran has been enriching nuclear fuel and developing some necessary infrastructure to become a nuclear power,” the Times disclosed that secret state agencies also “believe that Iran has yet to decide whether to resume a parallel program to design a nuclear warhead–a program they believe was essentially halted in 2003 and which would be necessary for Iran to build a nuclear bomb.”

In his January 31 Senate testimony, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper “stated explicitly that American officials believe that Iran is preserving its options for a nuclear weapon, but said there was no evidence that it had made a decision on making a concerted push to build a weapon.”

Clapper’s assessment is shared by other top Obama administration officials including CIA Director David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey.

According to the Times:

Intelligence officials and outside analysts believe there is another possible explanation for Iran’s enrichment activity, besides a headlong race to build a bomb as quickly as possible. They say that Iran could be seeking to enhance its influence in the region by creating what some analysts call ‘strategic ambiguity’.

Given the belligerent rhetoric and hostile military maneuvers by the United States, Israel and NATO, why wouldn’t the Iranians aim for “strategic ambiguity” in their dealings with the West?

Ringed by U.S. military bases, targets of a CIA/Mossad “active program” to assassinate scientists, bomb military installations, wage cyberwar against nuclear facilities and impose crippling sanctions intended to crater their economy, it’s surprising the Iranians haven’t sought the illusory “security” afforded by possessing nuclear weapons!

Disappeared History

While disinformation specialists such as The Washington Post’s Joby Warrick shamefully assert that “Iran already has enough enriched uranium to build four nuclear weapons,” he trumpets this specious charge–and gets away with it–by hiding behind the skirts of anonymous “U.S. officials and nuclear experts.”

In fact, Iran’s “Supreme Leader,” Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated the obvious not only for Iranians but for the entire planet:

We believe that using nuclear weapons is haram and prohibited, and that it is everybody’s duty to make efforts to protect humanity against this great disaster.

Khamenei, the head of Tehran’s repressive mullahocracy, whose hand was strengthened in recent parliamentary elections, also reiterated that “besides nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons also pose a serious threat to humanity.”

“The Iranian nation which is itself a victim of chemical weapons feels more than any other nation the danger that is caused by the production and stockpiling of such weapons and is prepared to make use of all its facilities to counter such threats,” Khamenei declared.

The Grand Ayatollah pointedly alluded to chemical attacks on Iran during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq.

Though studiously ignored by corporate media in today’s rush to war, we would do well to recall that Iraq had been given a green light to invade the Islamic Republic by the Carter administration.

During that period, Western-supplied technology and logistical support, including geospatial intelligence provided by America’s fleet of spy satellites, along with billions of dollars in arms provided by Britain, France, Germany and the United States were lavished on Iraq when Saddam was America’s “best friend forever.” American and European firms literally handed over the know-how that allowed Iraq to kill and maim Iranian civilians and soldiers during that disastrous war. By the conflict’s end, Iran had suffered an estimated one million casualties, killed or wounded, and the near-destruction of their economy.

Investigative journalist Alan Friedman, the author of Spider’s Web: The secret history of how the White House illegally armed Iraq, documented how early in the conflict, the U.S. began providing tactical battlefield advice to the Iraqi Army.

“At times,” Friedman wrote, “thanks to the White House’s secret backing for the intelligence-sharing, U.S. intelligence officers were actually sent to Baghdad to help interpret the satellite information. As the White House took an increasingly active role in secretly helping Saddam direct his armed forces, the United States even built an expensive high-tech annex in Baghdad to provide a direct down-link receiver for the satellite intelligence and better processing of the information.”

According to Friedman’s definitive account: “The American military commitment that had begun with intelligence-sharing expanded rapidly and surreptitiously throughout the Iran–Iraq War. A former White House official explained that ‘by 1987, our people were actually providing tactical military advice to the Iraqis in the battlefield, and sometimes they would find themselves over the Iranian border, alongside Iraqi troops’.

But such support was not limited to providing advice and battlefield intelligence to Saddam’s generals; it also extended to Iraqi procurement of banned chemical and biological weapons, actual “weapons of mass destruction,” backed by billions of dollars in loan guarantees extended to Iraq by the U.S. Commerce Department.

Indeed, as Scotland’s Sunday Herald reported more than a decade ago, months before America and Britain’s rush to war with Iraq, an investigation all but suppressed by American media, “The US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.”

Investigative journalists Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot reported at the time that:

The US Senate’s committee on banking, housing and urban affairs–which oversees American exports policy–reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

Weapons that were used to deadly effect against Iran with the full knowledge, and complicity, of Western governments.

As Fars News Agency reported last June, Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani “condemned the use of chemical weapons against innocent people throughout the world, and lamented that the Iranians who came under Iraq’s chemical attacks during the imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) are still suffering from the impacts of these invasions.”

“On June 28, 1987,” Fars reported, “Iraqi aircraft dropped what Iranian authorities believed to be mustard gas bombs on Sardasht, in two separate bombing runs on four residential areas.”

“Sardasht was the first town in the world to be gassed. Out of a population of 20,000, 25% are still suffering severe illnesses from the attacks.”

As the National Security Archive revealed in declassified documents published in 2003:

By the summer of 1983 Iran had been reporting Iraqi use of using chemical weapons for some time. The Geneva protocol requires that the international community respond to chemical warfare, but a diplomatically isolated Iran received only a muted response to its complaints. It intensified its accusations in October 1983, however, and in November asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation.

What was the Reagan administration’s response?

A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its ‘efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results’.

Those “desired results”? The destruction of Iran by Saddam’s military, propped-up by the repressive Gulf monarchies that now constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates) whom Asia Times Online analyst Pepe Escobar has characterized as the “Gulf Counter-Revolution Club” and “NATOGCC.”

Indeed, as the Archive revealed:

The department noted in late November 1983 that ‘with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use. Given its desperation to end the war, Iraq may again use lethal or incapacitating CW, particularly if Iran threatens to break through Iraqi lines in a large-scale attack’.

Meanwhile, by 1984 “Ronald Reagan issued another presidential directive (NSDD 139), emphasizing the U.S. objective of ensuring access to military facilities in the Gulf region, and instructing the director of central intelligence and the secretary of defense to upgrade U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities.”

According to documents published by the Archive, “It codified U.S. determination to develop plans ‘to avert an Iraqi collapse.’ Reagan’s directive said that U.S. policy required ‘unambiguous’ condemnation of chemical warfare (without naming Iraq), while including the caveat that the U.S. should ‘place equal stress on the urgent need to dissuade Iran from continuing the ruthless and inhumane tactics which have characterized recent offensives.’ The directive does not suggest that ‘condemning’ chemical warfare required any hesitation about or modification of U.S. support for Iraq.”

As we now know, U.S. support continued and American and British firms supplied Iraq with chemical precursors used in the manufacture of chemical weapons subsequently deployed against the Iranian city of Sardasht, whose inhabitants “are still suffering severe illnesses from the attacks,” as Fars noted.

Bottom line for the Reagan administration’s State Department? “Gas the hajis and let God sort ‘em out!”

Another ‘Just War’ on the Horizon

As with the Bush administration’s ginned-up “evidence” used to slaughter some million Iraqis when the U.S. launched its “preemptive and premeditated” invasion of Iraq in 2003, as the National Security Archive disclosed, U.S. perception management over the use of banned weapons reflected “the realpolitik that determined this country’s policies during the years when Iraq was actually employing chemical weapons. Actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve U.S. interests.”

Indeed, the “U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing.”

Fast forward to 2012 and the manufactured hysteria over an “aggressive” Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear deterrence.

Is there a disconnect here? What “red line” have the Iranians allegedly “crossed” that would necessitate extorting billions of dollars from our disreputable Congress for war while Americans go hungry and lose their homes, congressional thieves in thrall to pro-Israel lobby groups and the Military-Industrial cabal of war profiteers who pull their collective strings? Are we to flatten yet another nation that hasn’t attacked us solely on the basis of ill-defined “ultimate ambitions”?

Increasingly, it looks like the answer is yes.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that an unnamed “U.S. intelligence official” familiar with discussions amongst top administration officials and their Israeli counterparts averred that Israel “won’t warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

Why not? Well, we’re supposed to believe a ludicrous fairy tale spun by Benjamin Netanyahu’s unhinged government that keeping “the Americans in the dark” would actually “decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel’s potential attack.”

Washington “peacemakers” eager to “avoid” war with the Islamic Republic, including senior “U.S. intelligence and special operations officials,” AP reported, “have tried to keep a dialogue going with Israel” by “sharing options such as allowing Israel to use U.S. bases in the region from which to launch such a strike, as a way to make sure the Israelis give the Americans a heads-up, according to the U.S. official, and a former U.S. official with knowledge of the communications.”

With this in mind, Haaretz reported that “Netanyahu is expected to publicly harden his line against Iran during a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on March 5, according to a senior Israeli official.”

Correspondent Barak Ravid disclosed that Israel is demanding that Obama “make further-reaching declarations than the vague assertion that ‘all options are on the table’.” In fact, Netanyahu “wants Obama to state unequivocally that the United States is preparing for a military operation in the event that Iran crosses certain ‘red lines’.”

Apparently, administration officials and Pentagon war planners got the message. On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported that “the U.S. could join Israel in attacking Iran if the Islamic republic doesn’t dispel concerns that its nuclear-research program is aimed at producing weapons.”

“Four days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington,” Bloomberg averred, “Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told reporters the Joint Chiefs of Staff have prepared military options to strike Iranian nuclear sites in the event of a conflict.”

“What we can do, you wouldn’t want to be in the area,” Schwartz told reporters in Washington.

In keeping with Obama’s statement that his administration is marching in “lockstep” with Israel, “Pentagon officials said military options being prepared start with providing aerial refueling for Israeli planes and include attacking the pillars of the clerical regime, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its elite Qods Force, regular Iranian military bases and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.”

The Guardian disclosed on Friday that “Israel is to test an advanced anti-ballistic missile system in the coming weeks, inevitably fuelling speculation about preparations for a possible military confrontation with Iran.”

“The unusual advance notification of the test,” The Guardian noted, “follows an unannounced test in November of a long-range ballistic missile that intensified speculation that Israel was preparing for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Just yesterday, TASS disclosed that “the carrier group of the USS Carl Vinson has re-entered the Gulf. Another US carrier group, of the USS Abraham Lincoln, continues to patrol the Arabian Sea just south of the Strait of Hormuz. It is backed by three attack submarines, one of which is carrying 154 Tomahawk missiles.”

In other words, preparations for a joint U.S.-Israeli-NATO attack will target Iran’s entire defense infrastructure, and in all likelihood its civilian infrastructure as well, in preparation of Washington’s long-standing goal of “regime change.”

Driving home the point that the United States is preparing to launch a new war of aggression in the Middle East, The Washington Post reported last week that contingency plans have already been drawn up for attacking the Fordow nuclear facility.

“Built into a mountain bunkers designed to withstand an aerial attack,” Pentagon stenographer Joby Warrick informed us, “U.S. military planners … are increasingly confident about their ability to deliver a serious blow against Fordow should the president ever order an attack.”

“In arguing their case, U.S. officials acknowledged some uncertainty over whether even the Pentagon’s newest bunker-buster weapon–called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator–could pierce in a single blow the subterranean chambers where Iran is making enriched uranium,” Warrick wrote.

However, “a sustained U.S. attack over multiple days would probably render the plant unusable by collapsing tunnels and irreparably damaging both its highly sensitive centrifuge equipment and the miles of pipes, tubes and wires required to operate it.”

“If you can target the one piece of critical equipment instead of the whole thing, isn’t that just as good?” an anonymous official told the Post. “Even by reducing the entrances to rubble, you’ve effectively entombed the site.”

It isn’t just centrifuges, however, that American and Israeli war criminals plan to “entomb.”

Close aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Tel Aviv’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper Wednesday that “Iran’s citizens should be starved in order to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.”

“Suffocating sanctions could lead to a grave economic situation in Iran and to a shortage of food,” YNET’s anonymous source said. “This would force the regime to consider whether the nuclear adventure is worthwhile, while the Persian people have nothing to eat and may rise up as was the case in Syria, Tunisia and other Arab states.”

“The Western world led by the United States must implement stifling sanctions at this time already, rather than wait or hesitate,” YNET disclosed. “In order to suffocate Iran economically and diplomatically and lead the regime there to a hopeless situation, this must be done now, without delay.”

As left-wing analyst Richard Silverstein pointed out on the Tikun Olam web site: “Keep in mind, this particular gem of an Israeli isn’t advocating merely putting Iran ‘on a diet’ as Dov Weisglass, Ariel Sharon’s advisor, did toward Gaza. He’s advocating death, malnutrition, pestilence: the whole nine yards of incremental genocide.”

“It’s especially telling that this genius came up with such a policy proposal on the eve of Bibi’s trip to Washington to meet with Pres. Obama, who will certainly warm to such an idea,” Silverstein noted. “I guess the Israelis must see this as an ice-breaker to bring the two leaders, who have a history of icy relations, closer.”

Mass starvation? Genocide? No problem!

And why not? After all, as Karl Rove told journalist Ron Suskind back in 2004: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”

But as Iran specialist Gary Sick recently observed in Le Monde Diplomatique, “When sanctions began Iran had only a rudimentary nuclear programme, without a single centrifuge. Today, after 16 years of ever-stronger sanctions, the IAEA reports that Iran has a substantial nuclear programme with some 8,000 operational centrifuges installed in two major sites, and a stockpile of about five tons of low-enriched uranium. This is the definition of a failed policy.”

“The US and its allies have responded by increasing the sanctions to a point where Iran would no longer be able to sell its petroleum products, depriving it of more than 50% of its revenues. This amounts to a military blockade of Iranian oil ports, an act of war,” Sick wrote.

“So sanctions, supposed to be the alternative to war, are gradually morphing into economic warfare. The point at which economic pressure becomes undeclared war will be reached by mid-2012 when near-total boycotts of Iranian banks and Iranian oil by the US and the EU will formally take effect. No one can be sure how Iran will respond, but it is difficult to believe it will meekly surrender or simply do nothing.”

And when Obama and Netanyahu meet tomorrow in Washington, “neither heads of state will have to worry too much about plotting their war on Iran. Pentagon officials are saying that those wheels are already in motion,” Russia Today noted.

“With Obama preparing to go before the AIPAC conference this weekend, there are already talks that the United States’ commander-in-chief is considering giving in to Israeli pressure to align against Iran with force, fearing what repercussions could come on Election Day should he walk,” RT observed.

Although “Obama has been hesitant to throw his weight behind any actual endorsements of war so far–and much to the chagrin of Israel–but this week’s meeting between Barak and Panetta suggest that Obama may soon crack.”

Should the United States engage Iran militarily however, it just might be more than Obama that would “soon crack.”

As Global Research analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya warned, citing the results of a 2002 Pentagon war game: “Iran would react to U.S. aggression by launching a massive barrage of missiles that would overwhelm the U.S. and destroy sixteen U.S. naval vessels–an aircraft carrier, ten cruisers, and five amphibious ships. It is estimated that if this had happened in real war theater context, more than 20,000 U.S. servicemen would have been killed in the first day following the attack.”

While we do not know where belligerent moves by the West will lead, it is also clear that despite these threats Iran will “not go gentle into that good night.”

Jimmy Carter, John Mearsheimer, Richard Goldstone, Desmond Tutu, Susan Abulhawa, and Norman Finkelstein have all been scourged by this infamous Dershbag. But ironically, to be dershed is no longer a “scarlet letter” but rather a badge of honor.

His latest venom is directed towards Gilad Atzmon, a world class jazz musician, who has just written a spectacular book The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics (Zero Books, 2011). This short piece of non-fiction is a well-researched, systematic approach to understanding the psycho-social dynamics (in the words of Kathleen Christison) of how so many Jews, believing themselves to be doing “what is good for the Jews,” have managed to carve the heart out of the Palestinian nation and make this tragedy look like the natural order of things. Such sentiments violate the Zionist narrative and are hence open season for Professor Dershbag.

Of course he begins with the charge of anti-Semitism; the fact that Gilad Atzmon is Israeli and served in the IDF is ignored. Then comes the charge of Holocaust denial; the self-victimizing history of the Holocaust as told by Elie Wiesel must be believed and never questioned. Even Norman Finkelstein whose parents were both real survivors of Nazi concentration camps, was labeled a Holocaust denier after he dared to write a book revealing the duplicity of “The Holocaust Industry.”

The vile rants of this Harvard professor should embarrass this premier American university that claims to promote human rights and diversity, but most academic criticism is muted out of fear of also being slimed by this “poison dwarf”, which after all is the very definition of “Giftzwerg.”

Since Dershowitz is an advocate of torture, especially if it involves a ticking bomb, he has been invited by the sponsors of An Evening with Gilad Atzmon (March 13th, The Cracker Factory, Geneva, NY) to personally waterboard Gilad Atzmon in front of a crowd expected to be about 300, including students from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. It should be quite a performance. (Tickets are $18 and all proceeds go to the Deir Yassin Remembered Scholarship Fund.)

First, it’s seriously irritating that Finkelstein goes on about international law in ways that reduce international law to a parody of itself. You can’t take some law and not all law, he says, as though law is a fixed box set. For one thing, he cherry-picks law with abandon himself, as I’ll discuss later. But mainly, international law isn’t a frozen set of rules. Like any law, it’s a moving target. Rules and norms develop incrementally, and are interpreted and reinterpreted over time, as conditions and needs change. For example, when the United Nations voted for partitioning Palestine in 1947, apartheid in South Africa hadn’t yet been invented. Within a few more years, South Africa’s first apartheid laws were on the books, yet it was another decade before the UN began to react seriously against it and 1973 before the UN made apartheid a crime against humanity. Today, the prohibition of apartheid is codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and what Israel is doing can be defined and denounced in terms that did not exist a half-century ago.

This is why Finkelstein botches international law in holding that, because “Israel is a state,” no one has a jot to say about the situation of Arab citizens inside Israel. Even when he talks about the 1947 partition resolution of the UN, Resolution 181, which recommended partitioning Mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, he gets it wrong. He forgets that Resolution 181 specified plainly that neither state could discriminate on the basis of religion or race. When the General Assembly admitted Israel as a member of the UN in 1949, on the basis of this history, its members relied (gullibly) on Israel’s hints that it would not discriminate against Arabs inside the state. So Israel’s discriminatory laws flew in the face of international opinion even in 1949, let alone sixty-plus years later, when human rights law has gained so much more strength in prohibiting racial discrimination and apartheid. Today, no state anywhere in the world today has a “right” to discriminate among its citizens on the basis of race, religion, or ethnic or national origin. Israel has signed onto the international conventions which explicitly prohibit such discrimination and is bound by its obligations on this score.

So if Finkelstein and others try to rely on diplomatic recognition of Israel to argue that international law has nothing to say about discrimination against Arabs in Israel, they are flat wrong, because it is flatly prohibited. Yes, Israel is recognized as a state, but so is South Africa, and that didn’t stop the entire world from slamming apartheid as the racist abomination it was and insisting that the apartheid regime be dismantled.

Finkelstein is also flat wrong on another historical point: that the international legal framework for resolving the conflict has always been partition into two states. For evidence, he mentions that when Arafat—that legendary legal mind— proposed two states in 1989, he invoked the 1947 partition resolution as unfinished business of the conflict. Yes, Arafat did cite this, but his point was precisely to jump back over four decades during which the opposite was true. From 1947 to 1989, Israel flatly rejected creation of a Palestinian state anywhere in Mandate Palestine as an intolerable threat to Israel. The formal public position of the PLO from its creation until 1988 was also one state. Since 1967, Israel has made deadly clear—in rhetoric, laws, maps, settlement construction, military rule and anything else we might care to check—its intention is to keep all of Mandate Palestine under its supreme control. And in all that time, the UN Security Council said nothing about two states or even about Palestinian national rights. That’s precisely why the Oslo Accords manifested to naive international public as a “historic compromise”, blah blah.

Finkelstein calls for us to stick with this “historic compromise”. He dresses down the BDS movement for not doing so and for seeking instead, if implicitly, to “eliminate” or “abolish Israel”. We are all so sick of this language that I couldn’t normally find energy to write this sentence, except that he extends the point to delegitimizing the BDS organizers by saying that they “don’t want Israel to exist”. So let’s go through it one more time: this old Zionist chestnut makes open hash of international law by deliberately confusing two things—Israel as a modern territorial state and Israel as a Jewish state. Finkelstein’s critique of BDS doctrine is sort of right: yes, taken as a whole (as I agree with him we should take it), the comprehensive effect of the BDS agenda would “abolish Israel” as a Jewish state. But is this logical implication—based entirely on international human rights law, by the way—illegitimate? I’d say, damn straight, Israel as a Jewish state must be abolished, just as white South Africa had to be “abolished”, and for the same reason—because ethnic states simply can’t exist without discrimination and oppression. But does this mean abolishing Israel as a modern territorial state? Of course not, just as South Africa was not “abolished” in this sense. So language about “eliminating Israel” is just pointless sophistry—scare-mongering, rhetorical sabotage—as Finkelstein well knows. Indeed, accepting his claim to senior experience of this conflict, we must assume he knows all about this manipulative language and his using it therefore can only mirror his accusations of hypocrisy back on himself.

Indeed, it is Finkelstein himself who avoids being honest—just saying straight out that he wants Israel to remain a Jewish state and won’t accept as “reasonable” any program that disagrees. Instead, he cites “international law” selectively and thinly as a cover for this. He also claims that the BDS movement contradicts “international law,” such as UN Security Council resolutions which call for creating two states. Yet here again, he cherry picks, and hoists himself on his own petard. He cites Resolution 1515 of 2003, which calls for two states, as “international law” yet then disparages Resolution 194, which calls for return of Palestinian refugees, as “indefensible”. Here more sophistry infuses his objection that mass return of millions of Palestinian refugees to Palestine would be entirely “unreasonable”. For one thing, at least one study has found that the number of Palestinians actually wanting to return would be in the hundreds of thousands, not millions. But, in any case, defending the principle of Palestinian return hardly precludes sensible policies to manage the pragmatic realities of it, and activists firing questions from audiences in Finkelstein’s talks (his example) hardly define the range of negotiation that must go into such questions. The very complexity of resolutions, diplomatic initiatives and contradictory clauses in the full history of the conflict precludes table-thumping about any one of them. All are necessarily subject to the diplomatic process, power politics, real politik, geographic constraints and evolving international views. Taking bits and pieces in isolation to call some “unreasonable” and others “international law” is meaningless.

It is indeed by viewing all this as a whole process, contradictions and all, that the “compromise” suggested by the Oslo Accords is revealed as a sham. Not least, Finkelstein ignores the glaring fact, hardly irrelevant to his claims about international consensus, that Israel itself has never agreed to a two–state solution. Aside from one sentence in a letter by Ariel Sharon, which was never formally endorsed by the Israeli Cabinet, Israel has never signed onto any document in any way that actually commits its government to create two states. Nor has it ever recognized the Palestinian people as a people or endorsed the Palestinian right to self-determination. The BDS movement might usefully address this farce and open discussions toward accepting that “Israel” now embraces all of Mandate Palestine and therefore must be reconceived as a secular-democratic state. But until that happens, the BDS movement can’t be criticized for standing silent on a geographic version of Israel that Israel refuses to hold for itself. Here Finkelstein’s citing the International Court of Justice on the question of where Israel’s exists is only more cherry-picking: a mountain of international diplomacy confirms that Israel’s final borders have not been set and the question remains a “final status” issue.

Finkelstein claims that BDS organisers will not admit to the true goals of BDS (the elimination of Israel) because they don’t want to split the movement. This isn’t a fact so much as an interpretation, but it’s easy to agree with him. He’s flat right that the three-tier goals of the BDS movement—end the occupation, return of refugees, equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel—would “eliminate Israel” as a Jewish state. I’ve pointed this out myself, and am convinced for several reasons that the BDS organizers are fully aware of it. And I too have been bothered by the elision, but on reasoning opposite to Finkelstein’s. I think that a strategic fuzziness on this point deprives the BDS movement of its greatest potential, which is the unassailable moral force gained by clearly rejecting discrimination in all its forms and fighting for creation of a non-racial state, as in South Africa.

Finkelstein, by contrast, denounces the campaign’s silence on this point as deceptive, and failing to accept the inevitable. In doing so, he tramples all over principles of political activism as freely as he abuses international law. His first fallacy is to deride the BDS movement’s fogginess on its ultimate vision of one secular-democratic state as “childish” and “silly.” In this view, he is strangely naive, for a political scientist, about the politics of liberation movements. It’s a very old and time-honoured method in building mass movements to tread lightly around issues that divide people until consensus and trust build to the point where more difficult internal differences can be productively debated. The Zionist movement itself has done this from its earliest years, in skirting deep internal divisions about Judaism and Jewish social values, but we can spot the same manoeuvring in any liberation movement over the past few centuries. So it’s hardly “hypocritical” that the BDS leadership is treading gently by not confronting its constituency with divisive issues until the time has matured for some respectful internal debate about what “eliminating Israel” will actually mean to the future and well-being of the Jewish national home in Palestine. Perhaps it’s time for those discussions to be opened, but meanwhile it’s truly silly to call the delay “dishonest”. (Perhaps Finkelstein’s sensitivity on this score traces to Maoism, to which, by his own account, he was loyal for decades longer than most people. Once in a cult, always see cults?)

Finkelstein’s second fallacy about BDS is in disparaging its few “successes”. Here he fails to grasp the essential character of a BDS campaign. Although any such campaign naturally seeks and celebrates landmark victories, its true success is not measured by the number of companies pulling out of contracts but by the incremental growth of world public opinion. Let’s get this straight: the primary purpose of BDS is public education. This is mostly an intangible or qualitative matter, yet of immense importance, as Israel knows full well: hence Israeli state rhetoric these days barely mentions “terror” and focuses almost exclusively on “delegitimation”. I’d suggest it’s a far better indication of the BDS movement’s success that Israeli ambassadors, meeting in Israel over the New Year’s break, reported that they had never before felt their diplomatic environments so chilly. Sean O’Neall has observed the same constraints confronting the stumbling Birthright Israel program, and other observers attest similarly.

Finkelstein’s third fallacy regarding activism is to protest that, if it’s honest about its “eliminate Israel” goals, the BDS will never reach a “mainstream public”. This objection about mainstream opinion, which he repeats several times, is bizarre on its face. Since when do human rights campaigns adjust their arguments to please mainstream opinion? Changing mainstream opinion is their very task. If activists took mainstream opinion as the proper guide to moral action, we would never have had the anti-slavery abolition movement, or the women’s suffrage movement, and apartheid would flourish in South Africa to this day. Indeed, we wouldn’t have most human rights campaigns. The toughest ones, which are often the greatest ones, must often start small and grow slowly.

Still, maybe Finkelstein is unintentionally helpful in drawing our attention to a seamier camp of human rights activism, by publicly positioning himself in it: some activists do tune their positions to what they think the majority wants to hear, eschewing stands that “lack support”. They may believe themselves pragmatic, but I call these folks “human rights entrepreneurs”, as they are essentially market-oriented. Like courtiers, they position themselves just behind the cutting edge, with a keen eye for trends, so they can surf a wave they didn’t actually have the courage or insight to create themselves. In other words, they are not guided by the moral principles of human rights but by how the rhetoric “sells”—how a human-rights posture gets them into the “club”, invited to conferences and onto speaker circuits, and draws funds to their NGOs (although I make no assertion about Finkelstein on the money question). I don’t work that way, and I’d submit that the great human rights campaigns of human history have never built that way. They build on principle, and the greatest movements, like the campaigns to end slavery and apartheid, hammered away for decades through fog and darkness, eventually succeeding when moral authority and changing conditions finally synced. So were these all “cults” during those dark years? If so, call me a cultist.

I’m not saying Finkelstein is a money-grubber. On the contrary, he is clearly saying what he truly thinks, and, setting aside his unnecessarily rude and insulting language, I respect his independence of mind. But his position is still entrepreneurial in approaching human rights audiences as markets, in the guise of being pragmatic. If he’s remains dedicated to this approach, perhaps he can remember the power of marketing: persuading people that they want something. That’s how the ANC did it, anyway, eventually selling its idea of a shared state to what looked for many decades like unassailable white rejection.

In stark contrast to Finkelstein’s argument, human rights campaigns must indeed assume, as a premise essential to their work, that public opinion—here, Jewish-Israeli opinion and Palestinian public opinion—is not fixed, but responds to persuasion, events and conditions. Especially, it responds to messages from the other side. A clarion call by the ANC for a shared state is what tipped South African apartheid leaders, once their world crumbled, to give up apartheid. When Palestinians decide collectively that their future is a reunited and shared Palestine, in which all citizens are equal in dignity and rights, the political chemistry of the entire conflict will change. By creating a “mainstream public” for themselves, they will ultimately create it for all.

This brings us to the question of leadership. One point I think Finkelstein did get right, and perhaps it was time to break ground by saying it. He decried the BDS Council for presuming to direct solidarity activities elsewhere. He mentions its squashing his own initiative in Gaza, which was a scandal, but also its claiming authority over initiatives by solidarity people anywhere in the world. I have to agree with him on this one: I’ve never seen anything like it, either—not with the Vietnamese, the ANC, Sandinistas, the Mayas, the PLO, East Timor, or any liberation movement I’ve ever supported or communicated with. The BDS Council is an able body of activists promoting an international campaign, but Finkelstein is right: it’s no more than an unelected, unrepresentative bunch of volunteers, and it has zip to say about what anybody else does, ever, anywhere, in support of the Palestinian people. Its only legitimate role is to serve as a resource, not an authority. Language I’ve heard by international activists on this score—that “proposals” for activity this or that must be “brought to the BDS Council” for “deliberation” and decisions about whether they should go forward—is gobsmacking and raises my political-alarm antennae. The same ugly impression was gained by AdamSchatz in the London Review of Books:

The idea of living with Jews—a central tenet of large sections of the Palestinian movement during the First Intifada—gave way to a vision of struggle against a faceless coloniser. When Israel began to build the wall, Palestinians retreated in pride and defiance behind a separation wall of their own. Many now refuse to associate even with those Israelis who are in sympathy with the Palestinian struggle. Amira Hass, the great left-wing Israeli journalist for Haaretz, who is based in Ramallah, was prevented from studying Arabic at Birzeit; Daniel Barenboim has been vilified by some leaders of the boycott movement on the grounds that the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Arab-Israeli youth orchestra he created with Edward Said, is promoting “normalisation” with the Zionist state. One BDS leader told me with eerie self-assurance that Said would have shut down the orchestra in line with BDS demands. There was even a debate within BDS about whether the Bilin protests ought to be boycotted because of the participation of Israeli Jews who might call themselves Zionists. ‘These people don’t go to Bilin, [Palestinian lawyer Diana] Buttu said. ‘They prefer to issue fatwas from their laptops, and if you question the logic behind the fatwas, you get called a traitor. [emphasis added]’

Who the flippin’ hell is the BDS Council to shut down the Barenboim orchestra, or turn away Amira Hass or anyone else from Birzeit University, or—god help us—presume to assert that Edward Said, of all people, would kow-tow to its puerile diktat? What random NGO coalition is authorized to silence dissent by denouncing people as traitors? This is not just arrogance but dangerous arrogance, ringing of proto-fascism—centralisation by authoritarian personalities, claiming doctrinal and strategic control over a liberation movement in the name of ideological purity with racist overtones, although they have no popular mandate whatever, not even the democratic figleaf provided by the (long-defunct) Palestine National Council. The dangers of this distortion must not be underestimated and further submission to its intimidation tactics is unwise. Perhaps Finkelstein has done the solidarity movement a service, after all, by throwing open a window for true Palestinian democrats to confront this tendency and nip it in the bud. Sometimes a bull in a china shop does create an opportunity to sweep out the place.

The station also fired 15 others on the same day but they were not controversial, high-profile individuals of Mr. Harris’ calibre.  Bell Media, of course, denies that he was fired because of his views and cites corporate restructuring as the reason for all the dismissals.   An examination of the facts indicates otherwise.  Two extremely right-wing talk show hosts were retained while Harris was fired;  one, Lowell Green, is 75 years old and in poor health and the second, Nick Vandergragt, is a recent hire and right-wing militarist who comes to the air waves with a strong background in truck driving.

John Counsell, another right-winger in the 10 p.m. to midnight time slot was also kept on.   It is doubtful that Counsel gets any ratings worth mentioning as he actually shouts through the whole two hour program.   Why fire a mid-day host and not a late night host?   Ten to midnight is a relatively unimportant time slot that on many stations is filled with syndicated programming.   Are we to believe that keeping three right wingers and firing the one balancing voice was purely a business decision?   No media organization will admit to firing someone for their views unless the individual made a blatantly racist statement (although Muslims and Arabs seem to be fair game these days).  In light of the facts, can anyone be blamed for believing that Harris was fired for speaking truth to power.

Being fired is not a new experience for Michael Harris.  His refusal to cease his investigative reporting into allegations of abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland led to his firing from a St. John’s newspaper.   The resulting book,   Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel won the Book of the Year, Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Letters award in 1991.

More recently (April 2011) he was fired from the Sun newspaper chain, (owned by the right-wing Quebecor group with strong ties to the Prime Minister’s office) after writing a series of articles critical of the Harper government.  He suspects, that a column he wrote just before the May 2011 election titled “Harper no longer on high moral ground,” was the stimulus for his dismissal.

Mr. Harris has told this writer several times in correspondence over the years that he has been under attack for his support of Palestinian Human Rights. It was obvious to regular listeners who are well versed in the powers and tactics of the Zionist lobby that this was no doubt the case.   There would be bursts of discussion on the Middle East followed by periods where no matter what atrocity was being committed on the ground he would not raise the event as a topic and instead engaged in more typical talk show fare; Tiger Woods, cats, violence in hockey, Valentine’s Day etc.   Mr. Harris like the rest of us has to eat and pay the rent.

A year or so ago, after a particularly long silence on Palestine there was a change.  One day he opened his show with a lengthy monologue about standing up for the principals that one believes in and ending with a quote by  Martin Luther King, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”   Since that day, his shows, while maintaining balance and presenting a variety of opinion have been a right-wing ideologue’s worst nightmare.

Not only did he begin to talk about Israel Palestine again, but he also addressed with even greater intensity and more directly, topics of deep significance to our globalized world.   For example,  the  no strings attached bailout of US banks in 2008 , the 1% that would turn us all into “corporate serfs”, environmental issues – from declining fish stocks to the Keystone pipeline, Monsanto, food sovereignty and Stephen Harper’s multi-facetted and unrelenting attacks on democracy.

In the past weeks he spoke a great deal about Caterpillar’s shutting down of the Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London, Ontario using it as a spring board to highlight the general assault on unions and the betrayal of public interests by our government.  The Ontario and federal governments provided millions of dollars in incentives to Caterpillar just 18 months ago but are now taking the position that they can’t interfere with the company’s business decision and are not calling for a return of public funds.

His firing from CFRA takes place after a concerted attack from the Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), following a detailed article  he wrote last week in iPolitics highlighting Israeli human rights violations and lambasting the Harper government’s lack of balance on Middle East issues.

Was Harris’ most recent firing a result of pressure from CIJA?   We will probably never know but when a child is beaten in the school yard it is only normal to suspect the school bully.  Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery has opined that Israel’s policies are a petri dish for anti-Semitism.   The Zionist lobby in Canada may someday find that their tactics have created some very unfavourable results.  Comment boards on the websites of major news organizations such as the Globe and Mail and the CBC clearly indicate that a very large number of Canadians are increasingly aware and aghast at the influence of the Zionist lobby on our media and government and refuse to be bullied into silent complicity with Israel’s daily crimes against Palestinians.

The silencing of Michael Harris is a tremendous loss of important information and debate in the Nation’s capital but the man has resurrected from two firings in the past.  While his light has been extinguished on the air waves, my bet is that we will see that bright spark rise again somewhere else soon.  My hope would be a book on the destruction of Canadian democracy by the Zionist lobby.

Indeed, as investigative journalist Robert Parry pointed out on the Consortium News web site, arch neocon Senator Joseph Lieberman “is leading a group of nearly one-third of the U.S. Senate urging that the red line on war with Iran be shifted from building a nuclear weapon to the vague notion of Iran having the ‘capability’ to build one.”

“In other words,” Parry warned, “the next preemptive war could be launched not against Iran for actually building a bomb or even trying to build a bomb but rather for simply having the skills that theoretically could be used sometime in the future to build a bomb. The ‘red line’ has been moved from some possible future development to arguably what already exists.”

Last week Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili wrote European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, reiterating that the Islamic Republic’s willingness to return to the negotiating table “is tied to the P5+1′s constructive approach to Iran’s initiatives,” Press TV reported.

In that letter, Iran voiced their “readiness for dialogue on a spectrum of various issues which can provide ground for constructive and forward-looking cooperation,” and that talks should be approached “on step-by-step principles and reciprocity.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, flanked by Ashton at a Friday press conference that was pure Kabuki theater said “We think this is an important step, and we welcome the letter,” The Washington Post reported.

“I’m cautious and I’m optimistic at the same time for this,” Ashton told reporters after a gabfest with Clinton at the State Department.

“It also demonstrates the importance of the twin-track approach,” Ashton told The New York Times, “referring to the international effort to intensify sanctions while leaving the door open for a diplomatic resolution of concerns about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons.”

In essence what Ashton is saying is: We have a gun pointed at your head and can pull the trigger at any time; better to capitulate now and give up your right to enrich uranium for your civilian program rather than run the risk of war.

Undeterred by implicit Western threats, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi “has reiterated Tehran’s determination to continue with its peaceful nuclear program, insisting on the nation’s willingness to even deal with ‘the worst-case scenario’,” Press TV reported Sunday.

Speaking at a news conference Salehi asserted:

Since we believe that we are right, we do not have the slightest doubt in the pursuit of our nuclear program. Therefore, we plan to move ahead with vigor and confidence and we do not take much heed of [the West's] propaganda warfare. Even in the worse-case scenario, we remain prepared.

Lambasting the West’s contradictory posture, hailing Iran’s willingness to renew talks with the P5+1 nations on the one hand, while raising “baseless allegations” over Iran’s civilian nuclear program on the other, Salehi observed that “they [the West] have an arrogant nature, they have not learned to engage in political interactions with prudent and humane manners.”

The Foreign Minister however “expressed optimism” that “Western countries, as a whole will amend their policies towards Iran.”

On Monday a team of IAEA inspectors arrived in Tehran, BBC News reported. Chief inspector Herman Nackaerts said their “highest priority” was to clarify the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program.

Although the Agency had described their last visit in January as “positive,” saying that Iran was “committed to resolving all outstanding issues,” as in the case of Iraq a decade ago, an unnamed U.S. official told The New York Times that the meeting was “a disaster” that demonstrated Iranian “foot-dragging.”

The IAEA’s board of governors “is scheduled to convene on March 5 in Vienna, the same day on which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to give a speech in Washington at a meeting of the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,” Haaretz disclosed.

Talk about coincidences!

‘SWIFT-Boating’ Iran

In her remarks last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that any resumption of talks “will have to be a sustained effort that can produce results.” Translation: “Iran will give in to all our demands–or else.”

The “or else” wasn’t long in coming.

In fact on Friday, the same day that Ashton and Clinton expressed “cautious optimism” over a resumption of P5+1 talks, the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT network, “bowed to international pressure,” Reuters reported, “and said it was ready to block Iranian banks from using its network to transfer money.”

So much for “confidence building” measures ahead of negotiations!

Washington’s latest move to strangle the Iranian economy, follow efforts by the U.S. and EU to enact crippling sanctions that would punish countries and financial institutions if they do not cut-off purchases of Iranian oil.

However, the Associated Press reported last week, “American attempts to get major Asian importers of Iranian oil to rein in their purchases are faltering as allies South Korea and Japan give U.S. officials a polite brushoff.”

“Emerging giants India and China may even increase their purchases,” AP disclosed.

Indeed, as a close ally of Tehran “China has also dug its heels in–in fact, far deeper than either South Korea or Japan. Beijing turned a blind eye to efforts by American Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to get it to cut back on Iranian imports during a January visit.”

“Earlier this month,” AP reported, “the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily described Western efforts to pressure Iran with an oil embargo as ‘casting a shadow over the global economy’.”

In this light, the move to cut-off Iranian banks from the SWIFT network will have far-reaching ramifications and will surely intensify Washington’s geopolitical machinations targeting their Asian capitalist rivals.

In an email published by Reuters, the private company declared that “SWIFT stands ready to act and discontinue its services to sanctioned Iranian financial institutions as soon as it has clarity on EU legislation currently being drafted.”

The Iranian response quickly followed the announcement. Last week, Iran said it would “immediately” order a preemptive embargo of crude oil exports to six recession-hit European nations–Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, France and the Netherlands.

“It took virtually no time for Iran’s Oil Ministry and then the Foreign Ministry to deny it,” Asia Times Online analyst Pepe Escobar wrote.

“But only the deaf, dumb and blind wouldn’t understand the message; blowback for the ridiculously counter-productive European sanctions/oil embargo package will only plunge vast swathes of Europe further into deep economic pain,” Escobar observed.

Making good on a pledge approved by Parliament earlier this month, the Iranian Oil Ministry announced it has cut oil exports “to British and French firms in line with the decision to end crude exports to six European states,” Press TV disclosed Sunday.

Oil Ministry spokesperson Alireza Nikzad-Rahbar said that Iran would have no problem exporting and selling crude oil to its customers.

“We have our own oil customers and replacements for these [British and French] companies have already been chosen and we will sell the crude oil to new customers instead of the British and French companies,” Nikzad-Rahbar averred.

On Monday, Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister Ahmad Qalebani “hinted at the possibility of a halt in oil exports to Spain, the Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Italy and Portugal,” Press TV disclosed.

“Undoubtedly if the hostile actions of certain European countries continue, oil exports to these countries will be stopped,” Qalebani said.

Call it round two of a new tit-for-tat oil war where almost everyone loses.

As financial jackals and capitalist hyenas lusting after publicly-owned assets in cash-strapped EU states such as Greece, Italy and Spain move in for the kill, Washington’s one-two punch against Iran and recession-hammered EU workers will have have the salutary effect of hastening “reform,” i.e., the immiseration of millions of proletarians “transitioning” to their new role as low-paid wage slaves in a global order lorded over by Wall Street and the City of London.

In a Press TV interview, two Italian lawmakers voiced “their serious concern about Tehran halting oil exports to some European states.”

Democratic Party Senator Francesco Ferrante told the Iranian news outlet that “Rome is currently importing a great deal of its needed oil from Iran.”

“As a result, Italy will suffer more than other countries from the decision of cutting oil supplies to European states taken by the Iranian government,” he added.

Ferrante said that “Italians’ everyday lives will be affected as fuel prices are likely to go up [as a result of Iran oil cut]. The [oil] cut will also have negative consequences on Italian companies.”

Another senator, Stefano Saglia from Italy’s People of Liberty Party, told Press TV: “Without a doubt, Italy is the European country that will be damaged the most from this situation as Iran and Italy have always been close business partners.”

And with a massive strike wave earlier this month against harsh austerity measures imposed on Italy’s combative working class by the unelected government of Prime Minister Mario Monti, the European Chairman of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission and a leading member of the shadowy Bilderberg Group, an Iranian oil boycott could send the Italian economy over the cliff.

As a result of escalating tensions, Forbes reported on Friday that the price of crude oil “has gone on a nice rally in February and a perfect storm has brewed that promises to take it higher.”

“Markets have underestimated how tight global oil markets truly are,” Forbes disclosed. So much for U.S. fantasies that Saudi Arabia or the Gulf monarchies will make up any shortfalls that arise from removing Iranian oil from international markets.

“Supply-side issues, particularly the problems around Iran, and demand-side issues, especially very strong Asian and Chinese demand, will help take prices higher. A weak U.S. dollar adds a final drop that could take U.S. prices to $118 a barrel by the fourth quarter of 2012, according to Barclays.”

“West Texas Intermediate contracts for March delivery, currently trading at $103.52 a barrel, have gained on eight of the last ten trading days while Brent, the international benchmark, recorded six positive sessions over the same time frame and was at $119.62 as of 4:20PM in New York on Friday,” Forbes reported.

Following Monday’s report that Iran may be poised to halt oil shipments to additional EU states, “crude for March delivery rose as much as $2.20 to $105.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest intraday price since May 5,” Bloomberg News reported.

“The more actively traded April contract gained $1.64 to $105.45. Prices increased 4.6 percent last week and are up 6.1 percent so far this year.” Additionally, “Brent oil for April settlement on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange climbed as much as $1.57, or 1.3 percent, to $121.15 a barrel.

According to Christopher Bellew, “a senior broker at Jefferies Bache Ltd. in London, who correctly predicted last week that the price of Brent crude would advance to $120 a barrel,” increasing tensions in the Persian Gulf “continues to support prices,” Bloomberg noted.

Commenting on the deteriorating situation, NusConsulting Group analyst Richard Soultanian told Forbes that “Market prices currently reflect a significant risk premia for the potential of a supply disruption from a geopolitical event,” i.e., a “preemptive” attack on Iran. “However, the amount of risk premia currently included does not fully account for an actual event/supply disruption.”

In plain English, should a U.S./Israeli/NATO attack force Iran’s hand into closing the strategic energy chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, as a defensive response to Western aggression, global energy prices will skyrocket and quickly wreck havoc on recession-plagued capitalist economies.

According to Barclay analysts:

Our view remains that policy and circumstances are now both running fast enough for policy accidents and unintended consequences to play a role. In other words, in our view, the probability of the situation becoming ‘hot’ in some way that affects the oil market is now significant and perhaps rising, in a way which makes the maintenance of too entrenched a short position in the market increasingly difficult.

Will the SWIFT cut-off work? “Hardly,” according to Asia Times. “It will certainly represent more devastation unleashed over ‘the Iranian people’–the vague entity of choice against which the US has ‘no quarrel.’ More than 40 Iranian banks use SWIFT to process financial transactions, and Iranians use it like everybody else in a globalized economy.”

However, Pepe Escobar writes:

It will drag SWIFT’s carefully maintained reputation for trust and neutrality through the mud; imagine other member countries’ reaction to the fact they can also be totally marginalized according to the US’s whims.

The “message” was delivered to the Europeans “Mafia-style” Escobar averred, “in person” by David Cohen, U.S. Treasury Department Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

On Friday Cohen told The Washington Post that cutting-off Iranian access to SWIFT “would build on earlier U.S. efforts to exclude Iranian banks from international commerce.”

“It’s another good turn of the screw,” Cohen said.

Really?

“If the Washington/Tel Aviv-promoted hysteria is already at fever pitch,” Asia Times warned, “wait for March 20, when the Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in other currencies apart from the US dollar, heralding the arrival of a new oil marker to be denominated in euro, yen, yuan, rupee or a basket of currencies.”

“That may be the straw to break the American camel’s back.”

Sometime in March, the USS Enterprise, along with a large contingent of U.S. Marines will join two other aircraft carrier battle groups and NATO warships and enter waters off Iran’s coast.

Earlier this month, the Enterprise and NATO military units, including forces from Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand concluded maneuvers, including large-scale amphibious landings against an unnamed “hostile power.”

The menacing tone of U.S. rhetoric was matched by the deployment of American firepower. The Associated Press reported last week that U.S. Fifth Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Mark Fox said that the Navy has “built a wide range of potential options to give the president” and is “ready today” to confront any hostile action by Tehran.

“We’ve developed very precise and lethal weapons that are very effective, and we’re prepared,” AP reported. “We’re just ready for any contingency.”

As the World Socialist Web Site recently pointed out, what Fox and other Pentagon big wigs have “outlined is the classic scenario for a US provocation that could provide the pretext for war–the appearance of ‘Iranian’ mines, an inflammatory media campaign and a US attack on Iranian naval assets that rapidly escalates into all-out conflict.”

“The US has a history of manufacturing naval episodes to serve as a casus belli,” Peter Symonds warned. “The notorious Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, in which Vietnamese PT boats allegedly attacked a US destroyer, was exploited to obtain congressional approval for a massive US military intervention in Indochina.”

Today, with the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration marching in “lockstep” with Israel as it plans to launch a “preemptive” war of aggression against Iran, and as the administration allies itself, once again, with the Afghan-Arab database of disposable Western intelligence assets, also known as Al Qaeda, in its “regime change” program targeting Iran’s ally, Syria, a major global conflict is a provocation away.

In October of 2001, Mr. Ghadry, along with several Syrian-Americans, formed the Reform Party of Syria. A constitution was written and a constructive and comprehensive program has been put in place to bring regime change to Syria. Today, the party is enjoying the tacit support from many organizations and people in the U.S. administration and think tanks in Washington.
Mr. Ghadry and the other co-founders of RPS are hoping to return to Syria one day to rebuild the country on the basis of principles of real economic and political reforms that will usher democracy, prosperity, freedom of expression, and human rights in addition to lasting peace with open borders with all of Syria’s neighboring countries.

Not mentioned but well-understood by the men from JINSA is that the well-connected Syrian “reformer” has been groomed to facilitate that unlikely democratic utopia by leading Iraq war architect Richard Perle, a prominent member of JINSA’s advisory board until a few weeks ago. But as the Prince of Darkness’s biographer wrote in a 2007 Los Angeles Times article:

Unfortunately for Perle, Ghadry is seen in many quarters as a front man for Israel. Not only is he a dues-paying member of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful Israeli lobby in Washington, but a recent column on his Web site, titled “Why I Admire Israel,” seems to play right into the hands of those who believe the Bush administration’s obsession with regime change in the Middle East is really all about protecting Israel. Did Perle, the savviest of Washington power players, believe that Ghadry’s tub-thumping for Tel Aviv would make him more popular in Syria?
“No,” Perle replied. “I don’t. But he’s his own man. I don’t always understand what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.”
So, in his quest for idealistic dissidents to do in the Middle East what the Walesas and Havels achieved in Eastern Europe, Perle and his acolytes have tapped the discredited Ahmad Chalabi for Iraq, the suspect Amir Abbas Fakhravar for Iran and the allegiance-challenged Fahrid Ghadry for Syria. They’re just not making heroes like they used to.

Perhaps Farid Ghadry’s pro-Israel image problem is why there appears to be no mention of his conference call briefing on the JINSA website. There is, however, one rather revealing reference to Perle’s Syrian Chalabi. In its Events & Programs section, under “New York Cabinet Meetings 2009, 2010 & 2011,” there is the following brief entry:

“The Role of Syria in the Middle East: Friend of Iran, Host to Hamas, and Patron of Hizbullah” – Farid Ghadry, President, Reform Party of Syria

To put all this into the broader context of the supposedly Israel-threatening “Arab Spring” — which the LA Times reference to Perle’s “quest for idealistic dissidents to do in the Middle East what the Walesas and Havels achieved in Eastern Europe” seems to prefigure — a seminal event, which I have previously written about, was held almost five years ago that brought together Israel partisans concerned with “rolling back Syria” among other regional rivals and their native collaborators:

Under the direction of Natan Sharansky, the former Israeli minister who resigned his cabinet seat in 2005 in protest over Ariel Sharon’s Gaza disengagement plan, the [Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies] held a “Democracy and Security” conference in Prague in 2007. It brought together Israeli officials; their American neoconservative sympathizers with their favourite Middle Eastern dissidents in tow — most notably, Richard Perle’s Israel-admiring Syrian protégé Farid Ghadry; and the newly-installed Eastern European democrats swept to power in the wake of a wave of neocon-backed “color revolutions,” the latter group presumably serving to inspire the Arab and Iranian participants to emulate them.

So, if you want to know what’s going on in JINSA’s road to regime change in Damascus, please RSVP to gro.asnijnull@treblocj or call 202-667-3900, Ext. 224.